MGM, inventor of the all-star big-budget soap opera extravaganza, sought to follow up their smashing success, "Grand Hotel" (1932), with another high-power ensemble film, and turned to this popular stage play for the material.
If "Dinner at Eight" is ultimately not as satisfying as "Grand Hotel," it's because director George Cukor does not take as cinematic an approach as Edmund Goulding. In "Grand Hotel," the camera went sweeping around the vast interior of that film's magnificent set, and the viewer comes away from that movie remembering images as well as characters. Cukor takes a much more stagebound approach with his film, and visuals are too hampered by small and static sets. Even the actors perform as if on stage, pausing at their entrances for applause they would have received had they been performing in front of a live audience. And even though the cast is comprised of the best MGM had to offer at the time, it doesn't gel like the cast in "Grand Hotel" did. Lionel Barrymore uncharacteristically seems to be on shaky ground; Billie Burke and her fussy performance are more distracting than funny; and Jean Harlow and her on-again-off-again Southern accent are all wrong. One can't help but imagine what Ginger Rogers could have done with the Harlow part if only Rogers had been a big enough name when this film was released. Only Marie Dressler truly delights, so much so that whenever she isn't on screen, you fidget waiting for her to come back.
As for the material itself, the play takes on some strong themes but handles them awkwardly. The set up seems to go on forever -- an hour into the film, I felt like the movie was still introducing characters and main plot threads. The ending has a hurried quality, as if the screenwriters decided they had spent all of their time on plot set up and couldn't afford any for actual resolutions. If the film is faithful to the play, the play must have been a fairly minor one.
So, certainly not a bad film by any means, and worth seeing for some of the most famous names in the early '30s, but it doesn't surprise me that the movie hasn't had the longevity of "Grand Hotel."
Grade: B
If "Dinner at Eight" is ultimately not as satisfying as "Grand Hotel," it's because director George Cukor does not take as cinematic an approach as Edmund Goulding. In "Grand Hotel," the camera went sweeping around the vast interior of that film's magnificent set, and the viewer comes away from that movie remembering images as well as characters. Cukor takes a much more stagebound approach with his film, and visuals are too hampered by small and static sets. Even the actors perform as if on stage, pausing at their entrances for applause they would have received had they been performing in front of a live audience. And even though the cast is comprised of the best MGM had to offer at the time, it doesn't gel like the cast in "Grand Hotel" did. Lionel Barrymore uncharacteristically seems to be on shaky ground; Billie Burke and her fussy performance are more distracting than funny; and Jean Harlow and her on-again-off-again Southern accent are all wrong. One can't help but imagine what Ginger Rogers could have done with the Harlow part if only Rogers had been a big enough name when this film was released. Only Marie Dressler truly delights, so much so that whenever she isn't on screen, you fidget waiting for her to come back.
As for the material itself, the play takes on some strong themes but handles them awkwardly. The set up seems to go on forever -- an hour into the film, I felt like the movie was still introducing characters and main plot threads. The ending has a hurried quality, as if the screenwriters decided they had spent all of their time on plot set up and couldn't afford any for actual resolutions. If the film is faithful to the play, the play must have been a fairly minor one.
So, certainly not a bad film by any means, and worth seeing for some of the most famous names in the early '30s, but it doesn't surprise me that the movie hasn't had the longevity of "Grand Hotel."
Grade: B