DINNER AT EIGHT (1933)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
An elegant, finely tuned 1933 comic melodrama about wealthy people may not pass muster in 2018 but who cares if they are wealthy? Made in Pre-Code days, "Dinner at Eight" is a hoot and a half, a terrific movie full of delicious zingers and dramatic moments that will give one pause. Director George Cukor plays the audience like a piano and does it about well as any director could, except maybe for Howard Hawks.
An elegant dinner is planned at the Jordans' extravagant looking home with a motley crew of guests. Billie Burke is Mrs. Oliver Jordan, the socialite married to shipping magnate Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore); her main concern is not having a full serving and cooking staff or all the food she needs (a small band is all set up, however, to play a few tunes). Marie Dressler plays one of the guests, Carlotta Vance, the former glorious theatre star who once had a romantic fling with Mr. Jordan with the promise of marriage. Jordan himself has issues, he is sick and is slowly losing business from prospective clients (remember this is the Great Depression era and Carlotta herself is in near financial ruin) due to people buying his stocks. Other guests include Wallace Beery as an aggressively obnoxious businessman who brags about meeting the President for a proposed cabinet position and resolutely hates his young wife, Kitty (a radiant Jean Harlow); Legendary John Barrymore as a former movie star named Renault who squanders any possibility of returning even to Broadway, and the suave Dr. Talbot (Edmund Lowe) who has an agreement with his wife that he may have affairs as long as he comes home to her every night. You know the movie is Pre-Code when a seemingly open marriage is deemed okay by its participants.
"Dinner At Eight" is chock full of surprises and sophisticated humor despite some tragedies that befall a couple of characters. The drama that hovers around Jordan's terminal sickness (unbeknownst to him) or Renault's heavy alcoholism that ruins him is never overplayed and is never treated less than seriously. The comedy always stings with truth, especially between Harlow and Beery (both of whom hated each other off-camera). Truth be told, Cukor was a hell of a director with actors but not so hellbent on striking visuals. "Dinner at Eight" has luxurious bedrooms and magnificently spacious dining rooms that can only remind one of its stage origins - the film is static in that sense but never less than invigorating due to the high energy of the actors. The movie assumes men are somewhat weak, and the women are strong and just as ambitious to climb the social ladder (in addition, Kitty manages to teach her husband proper manners). Naturally, such rebelliously feminist attitudes did not last after the Hays Code was implemented. A classic ending and a boisterous cast, there are few films from the 1930's era that are as unique as "Dinner at Eight."
