Les invités de huit heures

"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

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...

I happened across this film today and thoroughly enjoyed it. There is much to be praised in this film, as most of the previous reviews have detailed, so I won't go on long about it. (Though I'd never seen or heard of Marie Dressler before and now I have to find some of her other movies -- anyone else think she resembles Lois Smith?)

What was remarkable to me about the film was its timelessness. So many of the problems and situations embedded in the plot can be found in the headlines of today's newspapers and tabloids. Of course economic downturns, adultery, and social-climbing are common fodder for movies, but it is unusual for classic films to go into some of the nasty details without becoming melodramatic; they describe sexual addiction, for heaven's sake! I've never seen humanity so realistically portrayed in a classic film before (despite the moments that some would call "over-acting") and so this movie made me feel more connected to the past than I have ever before.

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!

What a cast - MGM's finest in a series of vignettes leading up to Mrs Jordan's dinner party (which we never actually see). Jean Harlow is at her wisecracking best and her most stunning; Marie Dressler and John Barrymore are terrific as washed-up actors; everyone is just excellent. Everything that can possibly go wrong does - you can't help but sympathise as Billie Burke's Mrs Jordan gradually gets more and more ruffled by the day's events. Some great one liners and yet another excellent entry on Cukor's CV.