Rent Dinner at Eight (1933)

Lot of Table-Setting - Dinner at Eight review by griggs

There’s a nagging feeling with Dinner at Eight that the problem might be me. It predates the Cukor films I love most — Gaslight, Born Yesterday, Holiday — but knowing what he’d later do with comedy and tension, I expected something with sharper teeth. The film doesn’t land either the laughs or the drama those later pictures manage so well.

Kaufman and Ferber’s play depends on the slow reveal of what each guest brings to the dinner, but Cukor clings to the stage version so faithfully that most of the running time feels like preamble. It becomes an MGM all-star parade, with famous faces filing in and out, and none of the characters are interesting enough to earn the patience required. For a pre-Code picture stuffed with adultery, corruption, and suicidal despair, it could really do with more bite.

Marie Dressler and John Barrymore get the best of it — Barrymore playing a fading, alcoholic matinee idol just as his own career was starting to wobble, which is either poignant or a bit too on the nose. Jean Harlow is great fun, and her final exchange with Dressler is a terrific zinger. It almost justifies the slow build to get there.

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.