User reviews

"Dinner at Eight" is a 1933 film that still holds up when viewed by today's audiences. How odd that it wasn't even nominated for an Academy Award. This could be because it is quite similar in form to "Grand Hotel", which won the Best Picture Oscar the year before. It really is more of a comedy/melodrama than pure comedy, since there is much tragedy unfolding during the movie. Aging star Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler) is broke, silent film star Larry Renault (John Barrymore) is "washed up" and a hopeless alcoholic, and Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore) is in danger of losing his shipping business. While these people are all struggling, the only characters that are doing well are the reptilian Dan and Kitty Packard (Wallace Beery and Jean Harlow). Dan Packard is a self-made millionaire with no ethics, and his wife is a gold digger with eyes for another man - her personal physician. The lives of the players all intertwine in ways that are unknown to them, with the depression-era message being that the rules of life have changed in ways that had never occurred in the U.S. before. The vice of the opportunistic social-climbing Packards is rewarded, while the well-heeled of yesteryear, playing by the rules of the past, have nothing but their memories and faded finery left to comfort them.

Of course, there are plenty of comic moments. Billie Burke's performance as Mrs. Jordon is hilarious as her prime concern is that her carefully planned dinner party is coming apart before her very eyes. She comes across as a kinder, gentler Marie Antoinette when she acts like the accidental destruction of her centerpiece dish, a lion-shaped aspic, is the end of the world. Although many have said that Jean Harlow steals this picture, and her talents do shine through, I think Marie Dressler's comic touches really help make the film. For example, when a forty-something secretary mentions that she saw Dressler's character perform "when she was a little girl." Dressler replies that the two must get together some evening and discuss the Civil War. Dressler also makes the very last scene of the movie. As everyone is going into dinner, she finds herself in conversation with Harlow's character. First off, she does a hilarious double-take when Harlow mentions she's been reading a book. Next,Harlow tells Marie Dressler how this book she has been reading says that machinery will soon take over every profession. Marie Dressler looks Jean Harlow up and down as only she could do and says "My dear I don't think you need to worry about that."

If like me, you're more familiar with the early 30s Warner Brothers movies when Daryl Zanuck was at the helm which focussed on how the poor struggled with - and usually overcame the deprivations of the Great Depression, Dinner at Eight will take you a while to get used to. You might think it's not for you but you should stick with it - it's worth it.

Rather than finding Joan Blondell doing anything she can to avoid starvation or James Cagney turning to crime to feed his family, this film is about how the rich ultra-privileged cope with the economic disaster. Whilst their situations are not life or death choices, they're just as devastating for them - or they think they are.

When compared with what was happening to millions of working and ex-working people, the awful tragedy of Billie Burke not having an aspic lion ready for the dinner's centre piece may sound absolutely trivial - which of course it is - but this film shows how such pointless trivia is ruining her life. It's very clever.

It is a clever film (based on a clever play) but perhaps not that easy for us in the 21st century to engage with. Despite some descriptions it's not a comedy, it's not easy viewing and after the first half hour it would be easy to switch off thinking that it's over-hyped and boring but don't - keep with it. It's one of those films that sticks around in your head days afterwards because it's actually very good. Considering the talent and expense that went into making this that's not surprising. MGM pulled out all the stops with this and it really shows. Surprisingly even Jean Harlow shows that she can actually act!

Essentially it's theme is 'rich people are suffering too.' It focusses on a small group of 'privileged people' preparing for a big society dinner party but nobody is whom they seem. Some are living in a fantasy world they've invented and can't survive outside of it. Some have clawed their way up from the gutter to the top of the ladder only to find out that they're now teetering on the edge of a fragile precipice but to keep their social position, to maintain the facade which they need they must keep going even though they know their only option is to plummet down the ground. It's about a false world of vulnerable unhappy people figuring out (or indeed giving up on) how to cope with their futures. That sounds a miserable premise for a film and indeed it's not the most cheerful of movies but the witty script and professional direction make all these characters very real, multi-dimensional and personable. Of particular praise is John Barrymore playing a former superstar actor now virtually a destitute and penniless has-been, slowly killing himself with cheap whiskey. Because this role is essentially his own life by 1933, his performance is poignantly tragic and very moving.

An early film from George Cukor from the 30's. More a filmed stage play than a piece of celluloid. The character appearances are more like stage entries than camera set-ups but what can you do when the early days of cinema were the beginnings of a learning curve of what could be done rather than what could not. Anyway, a dinner date is coming up & the various ho-polloi of the New York upper-crust are meeting for a meal. Various story lines are told w/o anything resembling depth & the cast is more than up to snuff for the cause. Wallace Beery & Jean Harlow are fantastic as the bickering couple, we get 2 Barrymore's (John & Lionel, Drew's grandfather & great uncle) & the priceless Marie Dressler who steals the show as a once grand dame of the stage now having to deal w/actual life.

When you gather together the great stars of the early 30's, give them a great script, a great director and let them have their head, you get "Dinner at Eight". This is a delightful film which bridges the gap between comedy and drama. Granted, it is a little dated but that it only a minor inconvenience to those of us who love this movie.

You would be hard pressed to find another actress who could play the part of Carlotta Vance with such panache as Marie Dressler.......she is magnificent. She may give the best performance in the film but she has stiff competition from the rest of this star-studded cast.

I find John Barrymore's performance particularly good as it seems to mirror his own career and problems with alcohol. Arranging himself in the right light to capture the great profile one last time is poignant. I am not a Wallace Beery fan but he is spot on as the vulgar, grasping business man with wonderful Jean Harlow as his slutty wife. She is a treat and of course, no one can forget her exchange with Dressler at the end of the film when she announces that she was reading a book! The lovely Billie Burke, who made a film career out of dithering society women (although she was a former Follies beauty and wife of Flo Ziegfeld)is a delight. Lionel Barrymore plays it pretty straight as her long suffering, tragically ill husband. Edmund Lowe passes muster as the philandering doctor and the rest of the supporting cast is as good as it gets.

They don't make 'em like this anymore. It's a movie lovers paradise!

A flamboyant old actress with memories of lovers long dead. An alcoholic actor desperate for one more chance on the stage. An Oklahoma tycoon and his below-the-tracks, tough as nails wife. A philandering doctor and his faithful wife. They're all invited to meet tonight at the mansion home of a dying industrialist and his flighty, society-obsessed wife for DINNER AT EIGHT.

Following the great success of GRAND HOTEL in 1932, MGM & producer David O. Selznick embarked on producing an even greater all-star triumph. They succeeded. DINNER AT EIGHT takes a first class list of performers at the top of their form (Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Billie Burke) and seamlessly, if a bit implausibly, weaves a plot full of comedy & tragedy which allows each star to strut their stuff.

Dressler was Hollywood's top star at this time and she is wonderful, fingering her jewelry - each piece a remembrance of an ancient romance. She has only one scene with gorgeous Harlow and that comes at the very end of the film, but it's a classic.

The rest of the cast is a wonderful grab bag of talent: peppery Lee Tracy, elderly Louise Closser Hale, gentle Jean Hersholt, as well as Phillips Holmes, Edmund Lowe, Karen Morley, Madge Evans, Grant Mitchell, Elizabeth Patterson, May Robson, Herman Bing.

Take a moment to consider Edward Woods, playing Eddie the bell boy. The year before at Warner Brothers he had traded roles with James Cagney in a little picture called PUBLIC ENEMY. Cagney became an instant, huge celebrity. Woods continued to play bell boy roles...

Among the great actresses who have helped to illuminate the silver screen, Marie Dressler may be Chateau d'Yquem – a grand premier cru, in a class all her own. As aging star of the theatuh Carlotta Vance, a living relic of the 'Delmonico' era in New York, she walks away with an immortal movie, as entertaining a contraption as the studio system ever confected. And she does it effortlessly, despite some very tough competition – the most lustrous talent MGM could summon in the worst year of the Depression, and maybe the best it was ever able to gather together in the many constellations it assembled.

Dressler heads a large ensemble cast, with several distinct but interlocking stories, all leading up to (but never quite making) a posh dinner party at the mansion of Billie Burke, wife of shipping magnate Lionel Barrymore. Desperately trying to snag (the unseen) Lord and Lady Ferncliffe – moldering aristocrats she once met at Cap d'Antibes – Burke bullies and badgers everybody she can think of to seat a swank table. Worrying about nothing so much as how 'dressy' the aspic will be – it's the British Lion molded out of a quivering gelatin – she's oblivious to the human dramas whirling around the people on her guest list.

For starters, her husband is not only seriously ill but close to bankruptcy, to boot. Down in his nautical offices on The Battery, he's paid a visit by an old (and older than he) flame, Dressler; a bit down on her luck herself ('I'm flatter than a pancake – I haven't a sou'), she wants to sell her stock in his company. Another visitor, one of the sharks circling around to feast on his bleeding empire. is Wallace Beery, a loud-mouthed boor whom Barrymore nonetheless cajoles Burke into inviting, against her snobbish sensibilities. Beery, a politically connected wheeler-dealer, has problems of his own, namely his wife Jean Harlow. She lounges luxuriously in bed most of the day, changing in and out of fur-trimmed bed jackets and sampling chocolates while waiting for her doctor-lover (Edmund Lowe) to pay another house call under the pretext of tending to her imaginary ailments.

Burke's and Barrymore's young daughter, meanwhile, conceals a clandestine affair with 'free, white and 45" marquee idol John Barrymore, a washed-up drunk whose grandiose airs can't even fool the bellboys he sends out for bottles of hooch (a storyline in the screenplay, co-written by the also alcoholic Herman J. Mankiewicz – from the George S. Kaufmann/Edna Ferber stage hit – that can't have been comfortable for the similarly afflicted Barrymore, who's even referred to in the movie by his emblematic sobriquet 'The Great Profile').

Those are the major strands of the story, but there's even more talent on board: Louise Closser Hale as Burke's pithy cousin; May Robson as the cook in charge of the ill-starred aspic; Lee Tracy, as John Barrymore's exasperated agent; and, deliciously, Hilda Vaughn as Harlow's mercenary maid.

The goings-on range from the farcical to the tragic, and for the most part, the cast does proud in coping with the often drastic shifts of tone (true, some episodes carry more weight than others, some players less inspired than their colleagues; it's an episodic movie, at times dated, from the infancy of talkies when scenes were not a snappily edited few seconds but prolonged and often stagy).

Still, in this starry cast, Dressler shines brightest. A Canadian gal who started in the circus, she worked in vaudeville, theater, and, in the last few decades of her life, in Hollywood. Despite her girth and the delapidations gravity had worked on her face, she's never less than transfixing. She tosses off the requisite comedy as effortlessly as that oldest of pros that she had become, yet can draw the camera to her deeply kohled eyes when she imparts some very bad news and turn it into a few seconds of threnody. (Only Barbara Stanwyck commands so boundless a range, which we have the luxury of observing over several decades of her career; what survives of Dressler dates only from her few last years.) Dressler would make but one more movie before her death, but it's chivalrous to think of Dinner At Eight as her grand exit.

As Dinner At Eight winds down, the aspic never makes it to table, nor do some of the expected guests. But life plods on, if capriciously and unfairly. Burke, at the end of her tether, utters a plangent cry that sums up man's impotence against the cruelty of fate: 'Crabmeat...CRABMEAT!'

When I think of comedy films from the 1930's,I tend to think of mile-a-minute Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy like romps.That's not what you get with Dinner at Eight.This was surprising,due to the fact that film placed 85th on the AFI's 100 Years,100 Laughs list some years ago.I'm not saying it is a poor film.Anything but.It's extremely well acted,well presented,and it does have it's humorous moments,but there are some depressing elements to the film as well that make me question why anyone would call it a comedy,let alone why it would make such a list.In the end,I would recommend it,but don't go in expecting a rip roaring slapstick film.You'll only be disappointed in that regard.

MGM, inventor of the all-star big-budget soap opera extravaganza, sought to follow up their smashing success, "Grand Hotel" (1932), with another high-power ensemble film, and turned to this popular stage play for the material.

If "Dinner at Eight" is ultimately not as satisfying as "Grand Hotel," it's because director George Cukor does not take as cinematic an approach as Edmund Goulding. In "Grand Hotel," the camera went sweeping around the vast interior of that film's magnificent set, and the viewer comes away from that movie remembering images as well as characters. Cukor takes a much more stagebound approach with his film, and visuals are too hampered by small and static sets. Even the actors perform as if on stage, pausing at their entrances for applause they would have received had they been performing in front of a live audience. And even though the cast is comprised of the best MGM had to offer at the time, it doesn't gel like the cast in "Grand Hotel" did. Lionel Barrymore uncharacteristically seems to be on shaky ground; Billie Burke and her fussy performance are more distracting than funny; and Jean Harlow and her on-again-off-again Southern accent are all wrong. One can't help but imagine what Ginger Rogers could have done with the Harlow part if only Rogers had been a big enough name when this film was released. Only Marie Dressler truly delights, so much so that whenever she isn't on screen, you fidget waiting for her to come back.

As for the material itself, the play takes on some strong themes but handles them awkwardly. The set up seems to go on forever -- an hour into the film, I felt like the movie was still introducing characters and main plot threads. The ending has a hurried quality, as if the screenwriters decided they had spent all of their time on plot set up and couldn't afford any for actual resolutions. If the film is faithful to the play, the play must have been a fairly minor one.

So, certainly not a bad film by any means, and worth seeing for some of the most famous names in the early '30s, but it doesn't surprise me that the movie hasn't had the longevity of "Grand Hotel."

Grade: B

This film followed MGM's great success of the previous year, "Grand Hotel", as it afforded the studio a showcase for some of its talented stars. "Dinner at Eight" is one of the classic plays of that era, having been written for the stage by George Kaufman and Edna Ferber. The screen adaptation of the play is by Herman Mankiewicz, Frances Marion and Donald Ogden Stewart, some of the best writers the movies ever had. The film, under the impeccable direction of George Cukor makes "Dinner at Eight" one of the classics of the American cinema.

"Dinner at Eight" is a comedy, at heart, but there are elements of drama in it, as well. On the one hand, it offers easy laughter for the viewer, but it also has a dark aspect in its dealing with alcoholism and adultery. The film, like its predecessor, offers several story lines that keeps us interested in the different relationships the film presents for us.

"Dinner at Eight" boasts one of the best casts ever assembled for a movie. Marie Dressler, who is seen as Carlota Vance, was one of the best actresses working in the movies at the time. Lionel and John Barrymore had been seen together in "Grand Hotel" and both play pivotal parts in this film as well. The effervescent Billie Burke is one of the best things in the movie. Ms. Burke was one bright star whose contribution to the success of the films she appeared in was a guarantee for the people behind any project.

Wallace Beery plays the boorish and influential industrialist Dan Packard, a man to be reckoned with. Jean Harlow portrays his wife, the low life Kitty, who was two-timing Dan. In a way, Dan and Kitty seem to have been the prototypes for Garson Kanin's "Born Yesterday" because both characters bear a certain similarity in both films.

The supporting members of the cast are impressive. Edmund Lowe, Lee Tracy, Madge Evans, Louise Closser Hale, May Robson, Jean Hersholt, Karen Morley, and the rest, aside from giving good performances, leave their own mark in the film.

A great cinematographer was behind the camera for this movie: William Daniels. His amazing work is one of the best in any of the pictures he photographed. Mr. Daniels knew how to direct his camera to get the most out of these talented actors one sees in "Dinner at Eight" Of course, this is a film that bears the David O. Selznick signature, for it was he who decided to transform the play into a motion picture and he succeeded in doing it. Most of the creditor must go to director George Cukor, who was truly inspired in making "Dinner at Eight" a movie that has endured the passage of time.

More a loosely constructed vehicle for the considerable acting talents of once revered but now mostly forgotten stars such as John Barrymore and Marie Dressler, than a satisfying piece of early sound film-making in its own right. The first half is shamelessly long-winded and exposition heavy, consisting of needlessly drawn out conversations between ACTORS who are ACTING, rather than helping to tell any cogent or credible story. The second half is a little livelier, thanks mostly to one frantic monologue from Billie Burke, and the scene stealing of Lee Tracy, as well as Barrymore's sudden, tragic transformation from movie idol to washed up drunk before our eyes. The studio's intent clearly was to round up an all-star cast, fling something together and let them do what they did best as performers. That may have been a must-see gimmick at the time, but today it merely comes off as a high rent, two hour episode of "The Love Boat", as the storyline is little more than a thin excuse for the stars to parade about and strut their stuff. That is evidently enough for some hardcore film buffs, but not this one.

Dinner at Eight is one of the consummate movie buff's movies...

It has romance, glamour, wit, charm, intrigue, interesting characters and a great story.

The agonies that Mrs. Oliver Jordan (the incomparable Billie Burke [Are you a good witch or a bad witch?]) must go through to stage what is supposed to be a simple dinner party will leave you laughing, sympathizing and grateful you are not her.

Jean Harlow is at her most beautiful. She radiates an overt yet somehow innocent sexuality that shows why she became a major star so quickly.

Marie Dressler proves why she was so heralded. Her acting cannot be called subtle -- but it is always effective.

After watching this film you will wonder if people ever really did live this way. Strangely enough, I believe they probably did.

"Dinner at Eight"'s all-star cast, glossy production values, and lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous setting suggest that the movie might be nothing more than an entertaining romp. Remarkably, though, it consistently engages with the darker side of life. It's one of the few 1930s movies I've seen that takes into account the Great Depression and the ever-present risk of financial ruin. It also deals quite maturely with adultery, illness, and aging.

The movie follows a week in the lives of a number of New Yorkers who have been invited to a dinner party hosted by Oliver and Millicent Jordan (Lionel Barrymore and Billie Burke). While sometimes the plot is a little melodramatic, its serious undercurrents make it more realistic than other movies of the era, and a good social commentary.

That's not to say, though, that "Dinner at Eight" isn't funny. The humor arises from the characters, rather than the situations (this is not a screwball comedy!). Marie Dressler as an aging grande dame of the theatre, Jean Harlow as a vulgar and ambitious young wife, and Billie Burke as the sublimely frivolous hostess all have great fun with their somewhat stereotypical roles, finding fresh gestures and intonations that make them very amusing. John Barrymore is also excellent as a proud but washed-up matinée idol; in his last scene he is simultaneously funny and moving.

"Dinner at Eight"'s only flaw (but it's a big flaw) is that it still feels like a filmed play. Most of the vignettes go on for too long after they have made their point, and could use some trimming. If that had happened, there might have been room for an additional subplot (found in the play) about a love triangle between the Jordans' butler, maid, and chauffeur. This triangle is mentioned briefly in the film, but it would be nice to see it play out, especially because it might provide more social commentary about class distinctions.

Well I was sort of shocked at what an un-entertaining film this is. I usually love these 1930's "it's the Depression but everyone in this film owns evening dress" movies, especially the ones that were released pre-Code. And there are some nice performances from Misses Harlow, Burke and Dressler. But the tone of the picture is -- well to call it uneven would be a compliment -- some scenes are farce, some are dramatic, some are tragic and others to be honest are just a bore -- together they just make for a big mess. At best it's an interesting study in how Hollywood was still struggling to come to terms with this medium - particularly with the advent of sound and the need for real scripts with more complex stories than were the norm in silents. I don't know that I'd say it's not worth seeing, but I wish I'd gone into it with much lower expectations.

"Darling, I've got Lord and Lady Ferncliffe [...] You remember the Ferncliffes from London, do you darling?"

"Yes, yes.. and how dull they were, eating mutton."

I just love it! This lavish all-star MGM-production still is great entertainment. Some of it's notions are somewhat dated perhaps, but with this team behind - and in the film - nothing can go wrong.

A portrait of various strata of New York society, the clash between the newly riches and the old elite, the Old and New World, the battle of the sexes (between Wallace Beery and Harlow), Gotham in a nutshell. Nothing is "really" happening, the same as its "twin brother" GRAND HOTEL and essentially it's a filmed play (based on the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber), but with this cast there are no complaints. You don't hear anyone complaining about David Mamet's GLENGARY GLENN ROSS's filmed play, do you? Jean Harlow, "the Blonde Bombshell", as the deliciously vulgar wife of Wallace Beery, the new man in town, trying to connect with the New York elite and Washington politicians. John Barrymore is fantastic as a once famous actor from the silent era, who cannot accept the fact that his career is over.

To me the film is just a perfect time capsule of so many typical topics of the era: the depression, the transition from silents to talkies, the continuous transformation of the upper crust of New York society, the traveling by ocean steamer to Europe... It's actually a very rich film, no matter how fluffy it might look (in the case of Jean Harlow's wardrobe quite literally). And when given a treatment like this, the top-notch cast, good writing, gorgeous sets under the supervision of David O. Selznick and George Cukor, it's a feast for the eye.

Camera Obscura --- 9/10

DINNER AT EIGHT (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1933), directed by George Cukor, MGM's second attempt with an all-star production following the success to GRAND HOTEL (1932), is a remarkable as well as memorable movie that has benefited from repeated viewings over the past years. As with GRAND HOTEL, DINNER AT EIGHT was adapted from a stage play (by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber), and reunites some of its GRAND HOTEL performers, including John and Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery and Jean Hersholt. Unlike GRAND HOTEL, DINNER AT EIGHT is one of the best movies ever assembled to not receive a single Academy Award nomination. Even though it would be difficult to pinpoint which of the major stars might have been worthy of that honor, a Best Picture nominee would have spoken for the entire cast. In the usual manner of all star productions, of the major leads, all introduced with each face framed in a dinner plate, the one whose name comes first is the one with either the least amount of screen time or the one whose character enters late into the story. The star in question is Marie Dressler, a top-name at the time, leaving a big impression with her limited performance, and yet, it is Billie Burke as Millicent Jordan whose presence is felt throughout mainly because it's her dinner party.

The story begins with Millicent Jordan (Burke) a New York social wife, announcing her upcoming dinner party she's arranging for Lord and Lady Ferncliffe, and the people she intends to invite. As with the stage production, the movie plays out in numerous acts: (a) "The Jordan Home": Introductory scenes focusing on Millicent (Burke), her husband Oliver (Lionel Barrymore), head of a declining shipping company, and their troubled daughter, Paula (Madge Evans); (b) "At the Office": Oliver is visited by once acclaimed stage actress Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler), with whom he had loved in his youth, as well as one of the invited guests; and Dan Packard (Wallace Beery), a middle-aged promoter whom Oliver hopes could save him from his financial difficulties; (c) "The Battling Packards": As a favor to Oliver, Millicent reluctantly telephones Kitty (Jean Harlow) and invites the low-life couple to her dinner. Kitty, spoiled and lazy, wants nothing more than to break into society and meet the right kind of people. Being home all day doing nothing, Kitty secretly carries on a love affair with her family doctor, Wayne Talbot (Edmund Lowe), while her husband goes away on business, a secret known only by Kitty's maid (Hilda Vaughn); (d) "The Matinée Idol": In need of an extra dinner guest, Millicent invites matinée idol Larry Renault (John Barrymore), a friend of the family in town staying at the Versailles Hotel. Unknown to Millicent, her engaged daughter Paula is secretly Renault's mistress; (e) "Dr. Talbot's Domestic Problems": Scene involves Kitty's doctor and his illicit affairs with his patients, as discussed between him and his understanding wife (Karen Morley). which concludes with a visit from gravely ill Oliver who is diagnosed with heart disease; (f) "Back to the Jordan Home": While Millicent is interacted between scenes involving the dinner guests, this segment involves Millicent's own domestic problems with her hired help as well as the news about her guests of honor departing for Florida, leaving Millicent to locate substitutes as the guests of honor; (g) "Final Showdown for the Packards": In their home getting ready for the function, Dan and Kitty come to a showdown revealing how they actually feel about one other, with all their secrets coming out; (h) "Renault's Tragic Performance": Renault turns down the one act part as a beachcomber in a forthcoming play offered to him by an important producer (Jean Hersholt). Believing he is still important to the theater, Renault's trying and upset agent (Lee Tracy) brings the drunken actor to reality by telling him his career has ended long ago. Later, after the management asks him to leave the hotel, Renault agrees, thus, giving his one last "performance" to take place in the room; (i) "Dinner at Eight" The gathering of all the party guests at the Jordan home, with some resolutions resolved, concluding with the most celebrated exchange between Carlotta and Kitty.

Categorized as a comedy, with the exception of some cleverly written dialog, DINNER AT EIGHT is anything but a comedy. In truth, it's actually a stylish dramatic story centering upon the troublesome lives of Millicent Jordan and chapters involving her invited guests. The most interesting, as well as tragic, is John Barrymore's as Larry Renault, and how his character closely foreshadows his own life, as a habitual drinker, a fading actor with ex-wives, now in financial ruin. He is even addressed to as "The Great Profile" by his agent (Tracy). What's even more ironic is that Marie Dressler and Jean Harlow, who closing scene is classic, each would be dead not long after the release DINNER AT EIGHT, leaving their legacies behind them. Besides the leading players, others in support include Phillips Holmes, Louise Closser Hale, May Robson, Grant Mitchell and Elizabeth Patterson, all giving capable performances under Cukor's excellent direction. No underscoring whatsoever, with the exception of "I Kiss Your Hand, Madame," which is themed during the opening credits, and orchestra playing at the final minutes of the function, DINNER AT EIGHT appears to be a motion picture that has surpassed the 1932 Broadway play.

Distributed on video cassette as far back at the 1980s, and later on DVD, DINNER AT EIGHT, which makes a good double bill along with GRAND HOTEL, frequently plays on Turner Classic Movies. While there has been a 1989 made-for-television remake which premiered on Turner Network Television, with everything brought up to date, the main course on the menu today continues to be the unsurpassed 1933 appetizer. (****)

The movie Dinner at Eight is one of the best comedies ever made in Hollywood. Any reviewer who has claimed that it isn't a comedy needs to re-examine the picture. Although undeniably dark in its tone, the film is undeniably hilarious, especially when certain actors are on-screen. It could be called a dark comedy, even a black comedy, but a comedy it is nonetheless. There are eight `above-the-title' stars in this picture.

Billie Burke, except for the scene in which she discovers her husband is ill, is a parody of the society woman. Every line of hers, emphasizing her scatterbrain-ness and her lack of priorities, reeks of hilarity. Her role is pure comedy.

Lionel Barrymore, playing a sickly business tycoon, has a less comedic role. His opening lines about `Australian mutton' are hilarious. The way he watches his wife planning the party is also quite comedic. His dramatic moments juxtapose alongside his wife's to create some of her funniest moments. His part is almost split down the middle between comedy and drama.

Wallace Beery, portraying a ruthless, uncouth business man, is hilarious. His vulgarity contradict everything Mrs. Jordan views as ideal. He screams, yells, and has a violent temper. And, boy, is he funny to watch. Anyone who tries to label his performance as anywhere near dramatic should have his or her head examined. He gives the funnies male performance in the film. The role is almost all comedy.

Jean Harlow, as his slutty, common, vixen-of-a-wife gives the finest comedic performance of her entire career. She snarls, changes her voice in different conversations, manipulates, and lies, all to comedic perfection. Just the sound of her voice, saying the most outrageous dialogue to boot, triggers the laughs. This is the most comedic role in the picture.

John Barrymore, as an aging silent matinee idol, is the film's most dramatic performance. Although he has some comic moments (very few), and some ironic and satirical actions (when he kills himself, for example, he positions the light perfectly to capture his profile), for the most part, his scenes give the film their most dramatic moments. The performance is about 90% drama.

Edmund Lowe, playing a doctor-cum-playboy having a tryst with Harlow, has his part split down the middle. He is often funny, never reaching the sheer hilarity of some of the others, but, also, never quite elevating to the heights of histrionics either. His views on extramarital affairs are pretty funny, but when he has to tell a patient of impending illness, its drama. The fact that he specializes in `bedside manner' is just funny, and his first embrace with his `patient' is a scathing critique of corrupt society. Just as Lionel Barrymore's role, Lowe's is split fifty-fifty, right down the middle.

Lee Tracy, as John Barrymore's agent, is simply hilarious. His vocal fluctuations were his trademark, and the part seems tailor-made for him. Although he has many dramatic moments, he is very funny most of the time. His reactions and gestures are wonderful. In all, this part is about 60% comedy, 40% drama.

Marie Dressler, as a grand dame of the 1890s, is priceless. She all-but steals the picture from her co-stars. Sprinkled among her part are dozens of comic innuendos and perfect double takes. She is perfect and absolutely hilarious at all time, with the exception of the one scene in which she must explain to a young woman that her lover has committed suicide. The rest of the time she goes traipsing about making a perfect spectacle of herself, and she is the greatest asset to the film, acting-wise. Her part is 99% comic, except for that one scene.

The supporting actors, particularly Louise Closser Hale and Grant Withers, are comedic perfection. With the exception of the scenes in John Barryore's room at the Hotel Versailles, almost every supporting role is meant to be funny. The sets and costumes poke fun at the times too, and in the last analysis, the picture is a dramatic comedy, but a comedy bien sûr!

This is not a comedy! I'll say it again to those who read between the lines and ignore the facts. Even for the year it was made, this is not a comedy. People who believe this film is a comedy are the same people who think the Last Temptation of Christ is an Easter movie. This is not a comedy. Even to your far left "black comedies" this is not a movie you would want to watch because it is funny. Then again, let me also state, that this was a good movie for its time. Yes, its a classic, yes it will stand the test of time. But No! No! This is not a comedy let alone of the top ten 100 comedies of all time. It is a movie that laughs at the classes. Kind of like a Charlie Chaplin film with sound and without a funny comic like Chaplin. It is a 30's off beat drama about the struggles of a class system that has nothing better to do but have dinner at 8. What do you think........

A comedy build around a dinner party. Something like "La regle du jeu" (1939, Jean Renoir) or "Gosford Park" (2001, Robert Altman).

The great depression is looming large over the movie, in spite of the fact that it is a comedy. Everybody has seen better times and everybody would like to use the dinner party to investigate new business opportunities.

Jean Harlow is the most memorable figure of the movie to me. She was the sex symbol of the early 30's and in those days called "the platinum blond". She can be regarded as the predecessor of Marilyn Monroe, although her fame wasn't as well preserved after her (early) death.

In "Dinner at eight" Harlow plays an unfaithful lover and femme fatale avant la lettre. When having a discussion with another woman that in the future machines will take over all labor, the other woman looks at her sexy clothes and remarks that the Harlow character need not be afraid of that threat.

A scene such as the one described above proves that "Dinner at eight" was shot just before the Hays code became rigorously enforced from 1934 onwards.

You report as a goof that Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler) first tells Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore) that she sold her stock to a Mr. Baldridge but moments later says it was a Mr. Bainbridge.

When Vance first tells Jordan the name, she has to look at the check to get the name. When Jordan is on the phone, she states the name as she remembers it and the two differ.

The change in the name is not a goof but a wonderfully done Dressler moment showing that her character, after downing a large glass of whiskey, neat, that she is more than a bit addled.

It was so marvelously done that she fooled even the IMDb staff!

Hurrah, Marie. Well done!

A gala dinner on the occasion of the visit of English nobles will be held in the house of the great New York shipowner. Many dignitaries from high society were invited to the dinner. In addition to the host and hostess and honorary guests, there will be an actor who became famous in the era of silent film, a retired theater actress who used to be a big star, their daughter's fiancé, a famous doctor, as well as a new tycoon and his wife.

At first glance, this is the dinner of New York high society, but this is the period of the Depression and things are not as great as they seem. All these people are burdened with problems, hide secrets and have hidden intentions, which are gradually revealed in the week before the gathering, as well as on the eve of the event.

"Dinner at Eight", Cukor's melodrama with a dose of humor, is based on the development of the characters and their relationships, almost exclusively through well-written dialogues, presented to us by a great cast. The film puts high society down to earth and shows us that their lives are not fundamentally different from the lives of ordinary people, also showing the social changes caused by the Depression.

I am not able to see this film from the point of view of its contemporaries, but from my perspective, although it is nothing spectacular, it is quite a solid choice for a lazy winter afternoon relaxation.

7/10.

Dinner at Eight is MGM's screen adaption of the George S. Kaufman-Edna Ferber play of the same name that went immediately to the screen upon completion of its 232 performance run on Broadway. None of the cast from Broadway made it to Hollywood, but MGM put together one stellar cast of its own.

The central figure in this American drama of manners is Billie Burke who plays Mrs. Millicent Jordan, society woman whose sole concern is seeing that a formal dinner she's given comes off just right. All around her including her own family and the lives of her guests are in crisis. Her husband, Lionel Barrymore has health and business problems. Those business problems are being caused both the Depression and Wallace Beery who's trying to take over Barrymore's family shipping business. Of course Beery's concerns are domestic, his wife Jean Harlow's been carrying on with her doctor, Edmund Lowe who in turn has got nurse Karen Morley on the side as well.

Also on the Jordan domestic front, Barrymore and Burke's daughter Madge Evans is about to throw over her fiancé Phillips Holmes because she's gotten herself involved with a has been actor with a substance abuse problem, John Barrymore. Through all of this Burke flounces her way through like a female version of Clifton Webb's Elliot Templeton from The Razor's Edge whose sole concern was gossip and making sure his clothes properly fit.

Rounding out this cast and in fact first billed is Marie Dressler who plays an old musical comedy star who Lionel as a youth crushed out on big time. She's a wise old bird, probably could give some good advice if more people would confide in her. This was Dressler's next to last film and they don't get better than this. She's got the final and best line of the film when she comments on Jean Harlow's prospects for the' future.

Frank Capra wanted Dressler to play Apple Annie in his first real hit film, Lady for a Day earlier in the year. The part went to May Robson who is also in the movie as Billie Burke's cook. It was interesting to have them in the same film, I only wish they had a scene together.

The best performance in the film goes to John Barrymore who probably drew from his own self destructive impulses to create the character of Larry Renault. He's an over the hill motion picture actor who apparently only Madge Evans loves any more. No one will put up with his king size ego when they're accompanied with king size benders. John Barrymore created a whole group of self destructors in his career, several films of which I've seen recently like Counsellor at Law, Beau Brummel, and Grand Hotel to accompany Dinner at Eight. Barrymore is nothing short of brilliant. See how he goes to pieces when his press agent Lee Tracy finally tells him he's washed up and Tracy's washed up with him.

George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber are a pair of unusual collaborators. Both members of the famous Algonquin Round Table, Dinner at Eight is unusual for both. The usual Ferber saga about empire builders is certainly not Dinner at Eight. Lionel Barrymore's empire is already built and its tottering. And Kaufman's satire the kind you find in works like I'd Rather Be Right and The Man Who Came To Dinner is muted here to a large degree.

This was George Cukor's first film under his new MGM contract where producer David O. Selznick brought him when they both left RKO. It was an auspicious debut for Cukor. Cukor got spot on performances from his cast.

Dinner at Eight is dated however, still excellent. People just don't put on tuxedos for dinner any more, today's audience might find that strange. But it was a more elegant time.

"Dinner at Eight" was a star studded number, but only one person had me excited. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to see John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Jean Hersholt, and May Robson--all actors I like--but when it dawned on me that the actress playing Millicent Jordan was none other than Billie Burke aka Glinda the good witch from "The Wizard of Oz," I was thrilled to death.

The movie had many different players, as I've mentioned, and they all had some issue or another. The central focus of the movie was the Jordans and their upcoming dinner party that was supposed to be attended by the Ferncliffs, an important family from England. Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke) was wearing herself ragged trying to prepare for this dinner and it seemed everything was going wrong.

The real intrigue was the different guests and their issues. Larry Renault (John Barrymore) was a washed up actor trying to recapture his past glory. The nineteen-year-old Paula Jordan (Madge Evans), Millicent's daughter, was in love with Larry and wanted to break things off with her fiance Ernest (Phillips Holmes). Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore), along with health problems, had a shipping company going under. Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler) was going broke and wanted Oliver's blessing to sell her shares of Jordan stock. Dan Packard (Wallace Beery) was a rich man who'd gotten by through shady business practices. His wife, Kitty (Jean Harlow), was a lonely cheat who had terrible manners but wanted to be accepted by society. Dr. Wayne Talbot (Edmund Lowe) was a philandering doctor who had a wife who was in love with him regardless. And others such as Max Kane (Lee Tracy), Hattie Loomis (Louise Closser Hale), Ed Loomis (Grant Mitchell), and Mrs. Wendel (May Robson) added to the delicious stew that was "Dinner at Eight."

Free on Odnoklassniki.

With the last sounds of the frightening echo coming from the 1929 Economic Crash in Wall Street "Dinner at Eight" delivers ruthless and unsympathetic characters who are trying to live the best lives they can get with glamour, style, away from their husbands and wives but together with their lovers, even though most of them are doomed to failure.

The stage play of this might be interesting, funny and warmful but George Cukor's film with all the classic stars from MGM didn't add anything to his career simply because is boring, tedious to the fullest and we, as audiences, have no other place to go other than watch this film because it is often mentioned in lists of great films of all time, and when you see the constellation of stars present in this tragedy, names like John Barrymore, Marie Dressler, Billie Burke, Lionel Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery among others you really would expect something at least decent. It turns out to be a very boring movie that has no point, no direction, no meaning and it's not even a good entertainment.

It's just a plain boring picture with a almost ensemble casting. Almost because there's something about the acting here that makes this film worth of a few stars. Harlow and Beery were great, they have the funniest scenes in the movie as a rich couple that seems to never go along right; Lionel Barrymore and Marie Dressler are quite well too; John Barrymore plays a figure that resembles himself, a decadent and drunk actor who lives in a hotel without having money to pay for, and desperate to find a good play to act. He's the most interesting in the film and his solid dramatic acting made this more watchable. Billie Burke was completely annoying as the lady who invites all those rich people for the so mentioned Dinner at Eight, a confusing and strange celebration of the bourgeoisie futility.

And to think that Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote this (in a few years away, in the shadows of his drunkenness and trying to recover his fame he wrote what would become the best film of all time, and that is "Citizen Kane") and George Cukor ("Born Yesterday") were behind all this mess. A play that takes one and a half hour to get to its title, the disastrous dinner has to be badly translated to the screen. Nothing happens, the characters lives are filled with sorrow, failed things and everyone's pretend to be happy (or at least there's some who get fully loaded with drinks so that's why the so called happiness) and the meaning....well, there isn't one really.

For a drama it is boring (sorry, I can't find another word to say about this film) and for a comedy it is very unfunny with one or two well humored moments. For the most of its core it's silly, silly, silly. I had a bad headache before and during the film and it got real worse after it. But barely I would know that my next one would be even worst than this ("The Family Stone" but please do read my review of it) and that's why "Dinner at Eight" gets 3 stars, this and because of the casting. 3/10