One thing I hate about time is that with each passing year, Desk Set grows more and more prescient. Released in 1957 — during a recession — the film foreshadows: job displacement fears, human vs. machine efficiency, digitization of information, and corporate capitalistic motivation. The only thing, actually, saving this rom-com from being utterly gut-wrenching is … Christmas. Adapted for the screen by Nora Ephron’s parents, Desk Set features Spencer Tracy as an engineer who tries to prove his mega computer can replace a television network’s research staff, led by know-it-all Katharine Hepburn. At a drunken office Christmas party that would make Don Draper blush, it is pure joy to watch Hepburn lose her balance, swishing around in a long silver dress, her perfect diction drowning in Champagne and a sheer bounty of lamé. But as always, she remains quick on her feet, her wit intact. We should have listened to her and quit with technology then. Alexa, play “All I Want for Christmas.” See belcourt.org for showtimes.
Dec. 12 & 14 at the Belcourt
2102 Belcourt Ave.
