"What are you thinking, Bunny?" one of her assistants asks the network research chief when their office first uses the giant Emerac computer. Bunny (Katharine Hepburn) leans back on a desk and says, in amused exasperation, "Except for sex, what's left?"
A succinct question then, with that giant blinking, beeping machine, and still now, with its immortal ghost, AI.
Desk Set is a lighthearted but smart and prophetic look at human vs. Artificial intelligence, explored most wonderfully in the lunch scene on the wintry midtown Manhattan roof where efficiency expert Richard Sumner (Tracy) quizzes Bunny. Her answers are not simply correct, they are clever, probing, and perceptive. Like a computer, she evaluates input objectively. But unlike a computer, her responses exhibit freewheeling intelligence: a good memory in a mind not limited to the parameters of the question as worded: we don't just dutifully answer, we evaluate the validity of the question itself, which algorithms do not (and may never, Hal). She has another advantage over algorithms: senses, and the screenplay is smart enough not to overlook it. When asked about her personal life, we get this exchange:
Bunny: I don't smoke, I only drink champagne when I'm lucky enough to get it, my hair is naturally natural, I live alone - and so do you.
Sumner: How do you know that?
Bunny: Because you're wearing one brown sock and one black sock.
If you find that contestable, or boring, feel free, but don't let it stop you from enjoying the movie. Hepburn and Tracy clearly had fun making this movie, as obvious at the goofball end of the dinner scene that Gig Young crashes. The larger questions are underplayed, but poignant: Hepburn's struggle with wanting love and needing respect. The girls in the research department, smart as whips but underpaid (that new dress Ruthie wants), and now facing competition from machines as well as men. Joan Blondell's dialog, and her delivery. Even the formulaic joke about the old lady (Ida Moore) who has free run of the offices because she was the original model for the network's hotsy-totsy symbol.
A succinct question then, with that giant blinking, beeping machine, and still now, with its immortal ghost, AI.
Desk Set is a lighthearted but smart and prophetic look at human vs. Artificial intelligence, explored most wonderfully in the lunch scene on the wintry midtown Manhattan roof where efficiency expert Richard Sumner (Tracy) quizzes Bunny. Her answers are not simply correct, they are clever, probing, and perceptive. Like a computer, she evaluates input objectively. But unlike a computer, her responses exhibit freewheeling intelligence: a good memory in a mind not limited to the parameters of the question as worded: we don't just dutifully answer, we evaluate the validity of the question itself, which algorithms do not (and may never, Hal). She has another advantage over algorithms: senses, and the screenplay is smart enough not to overlook it. When asked about her personal life, we get this exchange:
Bunny: I don't smoke, I only drink champagne when I'm lucky enough to get it, my hair is naturally natural, I live alone - and so do you.
Sumner: How do you know that?
Bunny: Because you're wearing one brown sock and one black sock.
If you find that contestable, or boring, feel free, but don't let it stop you from enjoying the movie. Hepburn and Tracy clearly had fun making this movie, as obvious at the goofball end of the dinner scene that Gig Young crashes. The larger questions are underplayed, but poignant: Hepburn's struggle with wanting love and needing respect. The girls in the research department, smart as whips but underpaid (that new dress Ruthie wants), and now facing competition from machines as well as men. Joan Blondell's dialog, and her delivery. Even the formulaic joke about the old lady (Ida Moore) who has free run of the offices because she was the original model for the network's hotsy-totsy symbol.
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