The philodendron story

Desk Set

(1957)

Have you ever wondered whether every bottle of champagne opened in a movie has either been agitated or stored at 80 degrees? I weep when I see all that precious bubbly fluid wasted.

This is not Kate's best cinematic champagne buzz, but it's not bad, and like her best, it involves flirtation with the "wrong" man, except that since this one is played by Spence, and there's no Cary Grant equivalent, there's never any doubt that he's really Mr. Right, once all the confusion about whether the huge computer he's moving into the Reference Department that Bunny runs at the Federal Broadcasting Network (you know: in the old FBN Building, overlooking Rockefeller Plaza) is going to cost Bunny and her staff of 3 their jobs. Perfectly benign, perfectly forgettable, and once I realized that the 2½-hour time slot was just because I recorded it back when I would still take something from commercial-riddled AMC, the 103-minute actual running time was about right, too. (Yes, your math is correct: 103 minutes of movie, 47 minutes of nonmovie.)