Dinner at Eight movie storyline. A masterfully-directed, poignant melodramatic comedy by director George Cukor and producer David O. Selznick. This MGM film was based on the popular, dialogue-rich Broadway hit by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber.
It was studded with a tremendous ensemble cast of stars (inspired by MGM’s previous year’s Best Picture winner, Grand Hotel (1932)) – who are all invited to a Manhattan formal dinner party during the height of the Depression, by social climbing, flighty hostess Millicent (Burke) and floundering businessman husband Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore). [Three of the stars, John and Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery appeared in both films.]
Other guests include crass, crooked rich tycoon Dan Packard (Beery) and his candy-chewing, trampish trophy wife Kitty (Harlow), the family doctor Dr. Talbot (Lowe), washed-up, alcoholic silent-era actor Larry Renault (John Barrymore), and elderly ex-Broadway star Carlotta Vance (Dressler). The witty romantic comedy is filled with choice lines of dialogue, and revolves around various relationships between the characters. Suicide, financial ruin, love, infidelity and adultery, economic pressures, class conflict, the dawn of the talkies, divorce, aging and fading careers, and alcoholism affect their interactions.
Dinner at Eight is a 1933 American pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor. Adapted to the screen by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz from George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s play of the same name, it features an ensemble cast of Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Lee Tracy, Edmund Lowe, and Billie Burke. Dinner at Eight continues to be acclaimed by critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports 100% approval among 17 critics, with an average rating of 8.6/10.
Dinner at Eight (1933)
Directed by: George Cukor
Starring: Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Lee Tracy, Edmund Lowe, Billie Burke, Karen Morley, Madge Evans, Louise Closser Hale
Screenplay by: Frances Marion, Herman J. Mankiewicz
Production Design by:
Cinematography by: William H. Daniels
Film Editing by: Ben Lewis
Costume Design by: Adrian
Art Direction by: Hobe Erwin,Fredric Hope
Music by: William Axt
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release Date: August 29, 1933
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