Watch Dinner at Eight For Free

hyped garbage

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Anything more unlike an M-G-M film of the later thirties or forties would be difficult to imagine. It doesn't have the M-G-M visual look because Ced Gibbons didn't do most of the art direction for this one and so Barrymore's office looks appropriately dingy and old-fashioned and the Jordan home looks fusty and late Victorian. Oddly enough, Jean Harlow's apartment does look like Gibbons' work, being done all in white, while Harlow models some ravishing Adrian costumes.Mankiewicz's script is a brittle comedy of manners, played to perfection by a talented cast under Cukor's direction. Whilst larger than life, the performances are not allowed to degenerate too far along the road of theatrical posturing. It is a tribute to Cukor's skill that such noted scene-chewers as Lionel B, Wallace B, John B, Marie D, Billie B and May Robson can play together at all, let alone so convincingly ensemble and all comparatively subdued. Jean Harlow is not outclassed and in her arguments with Beery, the sparks really fly. The support cast is great too, particularly Grant Mitchell as an unwilling guest. The only player who doesn't really impress is Edmund Lowe who seems to have strayed in from some "B" picture. Not only is he utterly unconvincing, he's charmless too. In fact the two qualities are related - he's unconvincing because he's so charmless.The screenplay crackles with wit, which its age has not dimmed. Only the drama (the wrestling for control of Jordan's shipping company; a has-been super-egotistical actor planning a come-back on the stage), now seems somewhat clichéd and naive.

DINNER AT EIGHT is a serious comedy drama. Hard for me to choose another description. The film shows a set of relationships in people's lives. Given the circumstances of such relationships can be real. Usually the tragicomic.The essence is incorporated in two segments. The existential and emotional. They are very close no matter how separated them. From a different perspective, this thesis would be proved correct. This movie is worth a look. Relationships are intertwined in a tragicomic story. Comedy and tragedy alternate in such continuity that the viewer realizes that nothing other than mild collapse will not happen. The collapse did not begin or end, it is the continuation of what is already known. With her existentially and emotionally evolved and continues.The acting is pretty good. Marie Dressler (Carlotta Vance)was very good. It is a kind of link in the story. Lionel and John Barrymore (Oliver Jordan & Larry Renoult) can not be bad. They just good actors. Berry and Harlow (Dan and Kitty Packard) are incredibly entertaining. Dan acting stupidly next to Kitty. Kitty is the contemplation digger and probably naked under her dress. Billie Burke (Millicent Jordan) is in a good part of the film quite tiring.In this film, the concept is clearly outclassed. Comedy and tragedy go in pairs. In this film, people should recognize. Humor, which predominates, is enveloped in one deceptive veil of inevitable tragedy that surrounds life. Honestly, I'm not thrilled as much as I thought I would be.

George Cukor directed this effective drama that stars Billie Burke and Lionel Barrymore as Millicent & Oliver Jordan, who are planning a high society dinner party for different reasons: She is a social climber wanting to make a big impression, he is an ailing businessman who wants advice from fellow businessman Dan Packard(played by Wallace Beery) about his stock, since he is in financial trouble. Kitty Packard his wife(played by Jean Harlow) is a beautiful but abrasive woman who also wants to make a good impression. John Barrymore costars as an aging and alcoholic stage actor nearing the end of his rope. Well-acted and entertaining drama has good performances compensating for stagy nature of setting, resulting in a memorable time-capsule picture.

My mother and I watched most of this movie, expecting it to be a comedy (from what the box said). Comedy? There was not a single laugh or even smile to be had. The movie ranged from boring to unpleasant, and there were plenty of big stars but nary a likable or sympathetic character in the lot.The movie stars a wealthy New York woman who wants to throw a dinner party for the purpose of social advancement, with her husband reluctantly going along. She invites over a wealthy British couple who are coming to the United States, and invites a number of other people to have the proper number, as well as the right mixture of males and females. But everyone has some sort of dark secret; the couple's daughter, who has a fiancée, has fallen in love with an actor whose career is failing; the husband's company is in serious financial trouble; a former actress is also in financial difficulty; a bullying former miner is secretly buying out the husband's company's stock, and his wife is having an affair; and this is just a sample of the betrayals and intrigues that are going on.This could have had the makings of a comedy, but we found no jokes or any other reasons to laugh. Nor did we end up caring what happened to any of the characters in the story. Pass up this dinner invitation.