The glassy boys, the bursting girls

One of my favorite things this time of year is Desk Set, which isn't I think so much a Christmas film as a film set at Christmastime.  It's one of the few films to portray librarians not as dowdy ssshhing buzzkillers but as regular, smart working girls and I've always loved it for that as much as for the sparring between Hepburn and Tracy which is so wonderful it's almost a let down when they inevitably kiss and make nice at the end.  

(not really related but speaking of Christmas films, this made me laugh)

This kind of evokes the Desk Set era though I think it may have been written earlier.

Office Party by Phyllis McGinley

This holy night in open forum
     Miss Mcintosh, who handles Files,
Has lost one shoe and her decorum.
     Stately, the frozen chairman smiles

On Media, desperately vocal.
     Credit, though they have lost their hopes
Of edging toward an early Local,
     Finger their bonus envelopes.

The glassy boys, the bursting girls
    Of Copy, start a Conga clatter
To a swung carol.  Limply curls
     The final sandwich on the platter

Till hark!  a herald Messenger
     (Room 414) lifts loudly up
His quavering tenor.  Salesmen stir
     Libation for his Lily cup.

"Noel," he pipes, "Noel, Noel."
     Some wag beats tempo with a ruler.
And the plump blonde from Personnel
     Collapses by the water cooler. 

 

Comments

[davyh]

Ah, the plump blonde from Personnel...

[Greer]

:) I was at one the other week where that actually happened, she had to be carried out on a stretcher and everything. Some things don't ever change...