A woman who knows everything
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | A woman who knows everything |
| Original title | Desk set |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1957 |
| length | 103 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Walter Lang |
| script | Phoebe Ephron , Henry Ephron |
| production | Henry Ephron (producer) for 20th Century Fox |
| music | Cyril J. Mockridge |
| camera | Leon Shamroy |
| cut | Robert L. Simpson |
| occupation | |
| |
A woman who knows everything is an American feature film (comedy film), director Walter Lang in 1957 for 20th Century Fox has staged. It is based on the play The Desk Set by William Marchant . In Germany, the film was occasionally titled A Woman Who Knows Everything .
action
The setting is a high-rise office building in Manhattan , time is the present. Richard Sumner is an inventor and efficiency expert who developed a computer called EMMARAC ( Electro Magnetic Memory And Research Arithmetical Calculator ). Mr. Azae, president of a radio station, has already purchased one of these devices for his bookkeeping and is commissioning Sumner to check whether the company's information office can also be replaced by a computer. The information office is an in-house service department whose employees answer all kinds of queries with the help of a house library.
The head of the department is Bunny Watson, a woman of astounding education and intelligence whose only weakness is private life. She has been friends with Mike for seven years, an aspiring manager of the same company who values having Bunny always available without having to give her the concession of a serious bond. Although the women quickly discover that Sumner's work boils down to replacing it with a computer, Bunny and Sumner also begin to take an interest in each other privately. The fact that Mike "caught" her with Sumner in a supposedly precarious situation in her apartment comes in handy for Bunny. The two men also clash during a Christmas party for the office staff. In order not to lose Bunny to the supposed rival, Mike finally proposes to her.
The information department is replaced by an EMMARAC computer, a grotesque, room-filling machine that is fed with all the data from the library and is now operated by Sumner's assistant Miss Warriner. As a result of an operator error, the machine fails after a short time and the women gleefully return to their work. Since they have since received a notice of resignation, Sumner, who has never wanted to fire Bunny and her colleagues, complains to Mr. Azae. He reports that the termination is based solely on an error in the accounting system, which is now also computerized. The women keep their jobs, and Bunny and Sumner become a couple.
shape
A woman who knows everything is in color and produced in wide screen format Cinemascope .
Production and reception
Production history
The screenplay for A Woman Who Knows Everything is based on William Marchant's stage play The Desk Set , which was successfully performed on Broadway from October 24, 1955 to July 5, 1956 . In the stage version, Shirley Booth , Byron Sanders and Frank Milan played the main roles. In order for Tracy to appear in the role of a mature but romantic lover, the template had to be heavily rewritten. A woman who knows everything was the eighth and penultimate film together with Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, who were also a couple in private.
The interior shots for the film took place in the Fox Studios in the Century City district of Los Angeles, while the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan was chosen for the exterior shots .
Theatrical release
The premiere took place in the USA on May 1, 1957.
Reviews
"A spirited film adaptation of a stage comedy with witty dialogues that comfort the story's lack of substance."
literature
- Donald Deschner: The Complete Films of Spencer Tracy , Citadel, 2000. ISBN 0-8065-1038-2
- Romano Tozzi: Spencer Tracy , New York: Pyramid Publications, 1973. ISBN 0-515-03246-8 ; German edition: Spencer Tracy. His films - his life . Heyne, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-453-86009-8
Web links
- A woman who knows everything in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Desk Set (Engl.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ A woman who knows everything. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 23, 2017 .