Les invités de huit heures

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.

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...

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.

"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

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!