Dinner at Eight (1933)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Dinner At Eight, a vastly entertaining behind-closed-doors glimpse into the lives of the troubled and trouble making Who's Who of people invited to a posh Manhattan party, is served with ample helpings of humour and melodrama. Buoyed by the success of the studio's multi-starred, multi-storied Grand Hotel the year before, producer David O. Selznick aspired for something grander-and found it in this George Cukor-directed adaptation of the George S. Kaufman/Edna Ferber stage hit.
- Actors:
- Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Lee Tracy, Edmund Lowe, Billie Burke, Madge Evans, Jean Hersholt, Karen Morley, Louise Closser Hale, Phillips Holmes, May Robson, Grant Mitchell, Phoebe Foster, Elizabeth Patterson, Hilda Vaughn, Harry Beresford, Edwin Maxwell
- Directors:
- George Cukor
- Writers:
- Frances Marion, Herman J. Mankiewicz
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy, Drama
- Collections:
- Top 100 AFI Laughs, Top Films
More like Dinner at Eight
Found in these customers lists
Reviews (1) of Dinner at Eight
Comedy Drama. - Dinner at Eight review by Steve
After their success with Grand Hotel in '32, MGM released this in its image; another all star comedy drama based on a Broadway play. It retains many of the crew, and some of the stars in similar roles. So there's Lionel Barrymore as a dying entrepreneur. Wallace Beery returns as the bumptious capitalist. John Barrymore plays another bankrupt washout.
But this is much better, mostly because MGM's ace director George Cukor is in charge. He gets more disciplined performances from his stars. John Barrymore is especially poignant as an egotistical, alcoholic actor, which must have felt close to home. And there's Jean Harlow as a sexy gold-digger and Marie Dressler as the sardonic observer.
The support is fine too, with Billie Burke a stand out as a ditzy social climber who hosts a dinner for some visiting aristocrats and invites all of her diverse acquaintances. We see the ensemble cast preparing for the event, with comedy from Harlow and Beery as quarrelling nouveau-riche, and heartbreak from Barrymore.
It's precode so there are some skintight satin gowns for Harlow- by Adrian. Cukor benefits from an excellent script adapted from George Kaufman and Edna Thurber's stage play which is funny and satirical. And we observe that the best laid plans of mere mortals are ultimately futile! Particularly in the depression.