Desk Set (1957)

Katharine Hepburn: Bunny Watson

Photos 

Quotes 

• Bunny Watson : Have some tequila, Peg.

  Peg Costello : I don't think I should. There are 85 calories in a glass of champagne.

  Bunny Watson : I have a little place in my neighborhood where I can get it for 65.

• Bunny Watson : I've read every New York newspaper backward and forward for the past 15 years. I don't smoke, I only drink champagne when I'm lucky enough to get it, my hair is naturally natural, I live alone - and so do you.

  Richard Sumner : How do you know that?

  Bunny Watson : Because you're wearing one brown sock and one black sock.

• [Richard gives Bunny a personality test] 

  Richard Sumner : Now what is the first thing you notice in a person?

  Bunny Watson : Whether the person is male or female.

• Bunny Watson : Just for kicks. You don't have to answer it if you don't want to. I mean, don't dwell on the question, but I warn you there's a trick in it: If six Chinamen get off a train at Las Vegas, and two of them are found floating face down in a goldfish bowl, and the only thing they can find to identify them are two telephone numbers - one, Plaza Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh, and the other, Columbus Oh-1492 - what time did the train get to Palm Springs?

  Richard Sumner : Nine o'clock.

  Bunny Watson : Now, would you mind telling me how you happened to get that?

  Richard Sumner : Well, there are eleven letters in Palm Springs. You take away two Chinamen, that leaves nine.

  Bunny Watson : You're a sketch, Mr. Sumner.

  Richard Sumner : You're not so bad yourself.

• Richard Sumner : [watching the computer result on "Corfu", which is mistaken as "curfew"]  What the devil is this?

  Bunny Watson : [also having a look]  It's the poem, "Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight." Isn't that nice?

  Bunny Watson : [reciting]  "Cromwell will not come till sunset, and her lips grew strangely white... as she breathed the husky whisper, curfew must not a-ring tonight."

  Miss Warriner : [while Bunny goes on]  Mr. Sumner, what can I do?

  Richard Sumner : Nothing. You know you can't interrupt her...

  [the computer] 

  Richard Sumner : ...in the middle of a sequence.

  Miss Warriner : Yes, but, Mr. Sumner...

  Richard Sumner : Quiet! Just listen.

  Bunny Watson : "She had listened while the judges read, without a tear or sigh, at the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die."

  Richard Sumner : Uh, how long does this go on?

  Bunny Watson : That old poem has about 80 stanzas to it.

  Richard Sumner : Where are we now?

  Bunny Watson : "She has reached the topmost ladder. O'er her hangs the great dark bell, awful is the gloom beneath her like the pathway down to hell. Lo, the ponderous tongue is swinging. 'Tis the hour of curfew now, and the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath and paled her brow."

  [telephone rings] 

  Bunny Watson : "Shall she let it ring? No, never! Flash her eyes with sudden light, as she springs and grasps it firmly...

  [answers the phone] 

  Bunny Watson : ...curfew shall not ring tonight!"

  [audible click] 

  Bunny Watson : They hung up. And I know another one! "Out she swung, far out, the city seemed a speck of light..."

• Bunny Watson : [as she is about to go meet Mike]  How do I look?

  Peg Costello : Too good for him.

• Richard Sumner : That's correct!

  Bunny Watson : Yes, I know.

• Richard Sumner : You were late this morning.

  Bunny Watson : I know, but it's all right - I brought a note from my mother.

• Peg Costello : I could tell from the way he was lookin' at me that if I were any other kind of girl, it would've been the start of a beautiful romance.

  Bunny Watson : More power to you! You're lonely, but more power to you!

• Bunny Watson : Oh, I remember what: my other bottle of champagne.

  Peg Costello : If you take that champagne back to Legal, you won't even get another swallow.

  Bunny Watson : That's right. Maybe I'd better drink it right here. Join me, Peg?

  Peg Costello : Certainly. How does champagne go with Four Roses, Scotch, Martinis, and Bloody Marys?

  Bunny Watson : Oh, fine. They're all the same base: alcohol.

• Richard Sumner : Tough question?

  Bunny Watson : No... (chewing)... Tough roast beef.

• Bunny Watson : [pointing to a large stuffed bunny Mike has]  Aren't you going to introduce me to Harvey?

• Bunny Watson : Did you invent something that carries the mail?

• Sylvia Blair : What do you suppose it'll be like here next Christmas when we're gone? Do you think EMERAC will throw a party?

  Ruthie Saylor : Oh, don't talk that way. It's bad luck to talk like that. It's Christmas!

  Bunny Watson : It's Christmas.

  Peg Costello : Well, if we do get canned, we won't be the only ones to lose our jobs because of a machine.

• Bunny Watson : Don't you like women?

  Richard Sumner : Oh, yeah. Sure, sure. I like women, specifically as a sex and specifically.

• Bunny Watson : On the Shores of Gitche Gumee.

  Ruthie Saylor : James Whitcomb Riley.

  Bunny Watson : Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, bless him.

• Bunny Watson : [Referring to the all-glass front wall of her office]  Mike, for the 500th time, there's a glass wall behind you.

  Mike Cutler : [Ignores her and instead pokes fun at the "glass ceiling" notion]  Bunny, who do you think you're kidding? Everybody knows you haven't got a brain in your head. The only way you keep your job is by being nice to me.

  Bunny Watson : Well, a girl has to work.

• Richard Sumner : [reading a math problem to test Bunny]  Now, a train started out at Grand Central, with seventeen passengers aboard and a crew of nine. At 125th Street, four got off and nine got on. At White Plains, three got off and one got on. At Chappaqua, nine got off and four got on. And at each successive stop thereafter, nobody got off, nobody got on till the train reached its next-to-the-last stop, where five people got off and one got on. Then it reached the terminal.

  Bunny Watson : That's easy. Eleven passengers and a crew of nine.

  Richard Sumner : Uh, w... That's not the question.

  Bunny Watson : I'm sorry.

  Richard Sumner : How many people got off at Chappaqua?

  Bunny Watson : Nine.

  Richard Sumner : [stunned]  That's correct.

  Bunny Watson : Yes, I know.

  Richard Sumner : Uh, would you mind telling me how you arrived at that conclusion?

  Bunny Watson : Spooky, isn't it? Did you notice that there are also nine letters in Chappaqua?

  Richard Sumner : Are you in the habit of associating words with the number of letters in them?

  Bunny Watson : I associate many things with many things.

  Richard Sumner : I see. Hmm.

  Bunny Watson : Aren't you going to ask me how many people got off at White Plains? Three.

  Richard Sumner : But there are ten letters in White Plains.

  Bunny Watson : No. Eleven.

  Richard Sumner : [beat]  But only three got off there.

  Bunny Watson : You see, I've only ever been to White Plains three times in my whole life.

  Richard Sumner : Well, supposing you'd only been there twice.

  Bunny Watson : But I wasn't. I was there three times. Aren't you gonna ask me how many people got on at Croton Falls?

  Richard Sumner : There is no Croton Falls mentioned at all in the question.

  Bunny Watson : No, but it is the next-to-the-last stop on that line. Anyway, one.

• Bunny Watson : Really, you girls kill me. I was here until 10 o'clock last night and this morning at 9 I had to go to IBM to see a demonstration of the new electronic brain

• Bunny Watson : What do you do?

  Richard Sumner : I'm a methods engineer.

  Bunny Watson : Is that a sort of efficiency expert?

  Richard Sumner : Well, that term is a bit obsolete now.

  Bunny Watson : Oh. Forgive me. I'm so sorry. I'm the old-fashioned type.

• Bunny Watson : [answers the phone]  Reference. Miss Watson. Yes, yes, I have that right here. Certainly. It's no trouble. "By the shores of Gitchee Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Waters, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the moon, Nokomis." Childhood? No, no. That comes a little farther down. "And he sang the song of children, Sang the song Nakomis taught him, 'Wah-wah taysee, little firefly, Little flitting white-fire insect, little dancing white-fire creature, Light me with your little candle, Ere upon my bed I lay me, Ere in sleep I close my eyelids."'Uh, you're welcome.

• Bunny Watson : Well, kids.

  [pats Miss Saylor's behind] 

  Bunny Watson : What do you say we give the company a little of our time?

• Peg Costello : He always waits till the last minute. He knows you're always there.

  Bunny Watson : You mean I'm too available?

  Peg Costello : Available? You're like an old coat that's hanging in his closet. Every time he reaches in, there you are. Don't be there once.

  Bunny Watson : He'd just buy himself a new coat.

  Peg Costello : He's been wearing this one for seven years.

• Peg Costello : You go along thinking tomorrow something wonderful's gonna happen. You're not gonna be alone anymore. And then one day you realize it's all over. You're out of circulation. It all happened, and you didn't even know when it happened.

  Bunny Watson : Well, when that day comes, we'll move in together and keep cats.

  Peg Costello : I don't like cats. I like men, and so do you.

• Peg Costello : Did you hear anything I said?

  Bunny Watson : Yes, darling, I heard every word. But I'm the faithful-as-a-bird-dog type who can't be devious.

  Peg Costello : All right, Lassie. But when he disappears, remember, you heard it on this channel first.

• Mike Cutler : I don't get it. You're not the Bunny I know at all.

  Bunny Watson : No, I'm not.

• Bunny Watson : I did a little research on you. You were born in Columbus, Ohio on May the 22nd. That makes you a Gemini. You're a graduate of M.I.T. With a PhD in Science. You're a Phi Beta Kappa, although you don't wear your key, which means either that you're modest or that you lost it. You spent World War II in Greenland working on something so top secret that even I couldn't find out about it. You're one of the leading exponents of the electronic brain in this country and the inventor and patent holder of an electronic brain machine called EMRAC: the Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator. That's all I found out so far, but I only had half an hour.

• Bunny Watson : You brought me back a bikini. It was awfully flattering of you, Mike.

• Bunny Watson : [with Sumner accompanying on the bongos]  Oh, the beat-beat-beat of the tom-tom, When the jungle shadows fall, Like the tick-tick-tock of the stately clock, As it stands against the wall, Like the drip-drip-drip of the raindrops, When the summer shower is through, And the voice within me keeps repeating, You, you, you, Night and day, Da-da-da-da...

• Richard Sumner : All clear?

  Bunny Watson : You can tell those five other guys they can come out from under the bed.

• Richard Sumner : Caroline was a model. Five feet ten in her stockinged feet.

  Bunny Watson : You had occasion to measure her?

  Richard Sumner : Among other things, yes, yes.

• Richard Sumner : Now, do you notice anything unusual about the following sentence: "Able was I, ere I saw Elba."

  Bunny Watson : Um, no. But... I doubt that Napoleon ever said anything like that.

  [He smiles a little smugly] 

  Bunny Watson : Unless you mean because it's spelled the same way backward and forward. Is that what you meant? What do they call it? A...

  Richard Sumner : [a touch disappointed]  A palindrome.

  Bunny Watson : Mmm. I know another: "Madam, I'm Adam."

  Richard Sumner : I doubt if he ever said that.