"Desk Set" (with Hepburn and Tracy) Quiz

Answer: New York City

"Desk Set" takes place almost exclusively in a New York City skyscraper. The company featured in the movie is the Federal Broadcasting Company which is in the media business. Events in the movie revolve around rumours of computers being introduced to various departments and the fears of employees losing their jobs to a machine. Spencer Tracy's character Richard Sumner is the computer expert who is bringing in these new fangled computers and threatening their jobs. That's what everyone thinks anyway.

It's not the complete story.

Answer: Research and Reference

Bunny Watson is the head of Research. She runs the department aided by her staff, Peg, Sylvia and Ruth. Their job is to find information for the company's programmes or promotions. A quiz show may contact them and ask for baseball stats, geographical facts, the details of a poem or anything else. It's their job to find the information and quickly! Peg was played by Joan Blondell, a blonde bombshell in her heyday. She is Katharine's second-in-charge and a friend.

One obscure question that was asked was "Does the king of the Watusis drive a car?" The king of the Watusis does drive a car according to the movie. He drives a car bought with the money he made for his work on the movie "King Solomon's Mines".

Answer: Mike Cutler

Mike Cutler was played by Gig Young. He has dated Bunny for seven years with no sign of commitment. Peg tells Bunny to play "hard to get" as Mike thinks of her like an old coat hanging in his closet. Bunny does try but it's not in her nature. The tactic fails anyway and it's not until Spencer Tracy's character takes a fancy to Bunny that Mike realises he may lose her.

Answer: Philodendron

Bunny's philodendron has been growing in a pot for years. As it grows she suspends it along the edge of the ceiling as though it was living tinsel. When she thinks she's been fired she starts to pack up the plant. Peg asks her how she's going to get it on the bus. Bunny replies, "I'll say it's alive and pay an extra fare!"

Answer: Skyscraper rooftop

Richard Sumner's role in the company is initally a mystery to the Research Dept. He comes in, measures the wall and floor space but doesn't tell them what's going on. Rumours surface about computers in Payroll and his presence is assumed to be related to computers. Bunny tells the girls not to panic. There isn't a computer that can do their jobs with all the cross-referencing and interpretation required. The Payroll computer only needs to make simple arithmetical calculations.

Richard asks Bunny to lunch on his first day in the company but she's not impressed to find it's on the roof of the skyscraper. It's November and quite chilly that day in NYC. He doesn't seem to notice her shivering while he feels comfortable. Richard's intent is to give Bunny a "personality questionnaire" to assess her intelligence, cognitive processes and memory. She passes with flying colours. She then surprises him with everything she's discovered about him in 30 minutes. It includes his under-graduate and post-graduate studies, and elements of his career up to date. She couldn't find out what he was doing in Greenland during the war as that was classified but she only had 30 minutes to work on it!

Answer: Gender

This question was put to Bunny by Richard in the questionnaire during their lunch meeting. Bunny is surprised by the simplicity of the question but answers "Whether the person is male or female." She is surprised that what seems obvious to her isn't obvious to everyone. Richard merely grins and realises she is one very clever woman with a unique mind!

When you think about it, it is the first thing you notice about a person isn't it?

Answer: Odd socks

Richard wonders how she detected he lives alone. She tells him he's wearing one black sock and one brown sock adding that if he lived with someone they would have told him before he left home. Weeks later he displays matching socks and tells Bunny he's been matching his socks for weeks.

Richard doesn't really care about dressing to impress people. When he meets Mr Azae, the company's President, early in the movie he doesn't try to impresss him and Mr Azae asks him about it. Richard's response (with a grin on his face) is, "You'll be impressed when you get my bill!"

Answer: EMMARAC

EMMARAC stands for Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmethical Calculator. The intention is for EMMARAC to free up the staff's time by using the computer to research. The staff will then be able to work for more programmes and departments when the merger with another media company occurs. Bunny and her staff don't know about the merger hence their apprehension.

The merger is being kept quiet so the stock market isn't influenced in any way but it's revealed close to the end of the movie once the relevant papers have been signed.

Answer: "With or without people?"

Richard and Bunny are alone in the Research Department when the Promotions Department rings and wants to know the weight of the Earth. They both look at EMMARAC and Richard says to give her a shot at answering. Bunny states it could take weeks to find out that sort of information. EMMARAC doesn't give an answer in the end so we never do find out.

Answer: Mike to Bunny

Mike is promoted to Vice President in charge of the west coast branch of the company. He comes into Bunny's office, tells her of the promotion and suggests they can fly to California on the weekend. Then they can marry. Bunny dithers saying there are too many issues to think about such as her job and her apartment. Mike's a VP of the company and he can transfer her job over to the west coast. Bunny still doesn't say yes or no to Mike.

Later on Mike is talking to Bunny in her glass walled office. Richard senses what is happening and asks for a moment of Bunny's time to help with EMMARAC. He then enters the question, "Should Bunny Watson marry Richard Sumner?" into EMMARAC. The answer is printed out and it's "No". As Richard says, a computer is only as good as the information programmed into it. No, I'm not going to tell you whose (if anyone's) proposal Bunny accepts or declines. You'll have to watch the movie.

The last scene in the movie is EMMARAC exploding with punch cards flying through the air while Richard tries to fix it. EMMARAC then displays "THE END" on her large screen.