"Dinner at Eight" is a 1933 film that still holds up when viewed by today's audiences. How odd that it wasn't even nominated for an Academy Award. This could be because it is quite similar in form to "Grand Hotel", which won the Best Picture Oscar the year before. It really is more of a comedy/melodrama than pure comedy, since there is much tragedy unfolding during the movie. Aging star Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler) is broke, silent film star Larry Renault (John Barrymore) is "washed up" and a hopeless alcoholic, and Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore) is in danger of losing his shipping business. While these people are all struggling, the only characters that are doing well are the reptilian Dan and Kitty Packard (Wallace Beery and Jean Harlow). Dan Packard is a self-made millionaire with no ethics, and his wife is a gold digger with eyes for another man - her personal physician. The lives of the players all intertwine in ways that are unknown to them, with the depression-era message being that the rules of life have changed in ways that had never occurred in the U.S. before. The vice of the opportunistic social-climbing Packards is rewarded, while the well-heeled of yesteryear, playing by the rules of the past, have nothing but their memories and faded finery left to comfort them.
Of course, there are plenty of comic moments. Billie Burke's performance as Mrs. Jordon is hilarious as her prime concern is that her carefully planned dinner party is coming apart before her very eyes. She comes across as a kinder, gentler Marie Antoinette when she acts like the accidental destruction of her centerpiece dish, a lion-shaped aspic, is the end of the world. Although many have said that Jean Harlow steals this picture, and her talents do shine through, I think Marie Dressler's comic touches really help make the film. For example, when a forty-something secretary mentions that she saw Dressler's character perform "when she was a little girl." Dressler replies that the two must get together some evening and discuss the Civil War. Dressler also makes the very last scene of the movie. As everyone is going into dinner, she finds herself in conversation with Harlow's character. First off, she does a hilarious double-take when Harlow mentions she's been reading a book. Next,Harlow tells Marie Dressler how this book she has been reading says that machinery will soon take over every profession. Marie Dressler looks Jean Harlow up and down as only she could do and says "My dear I don't think you need to worry about that."
Of course, there are plenty of comic moments. Billie Burke's performance as Mrs. Jordon is hilarious as her prime concern is that her carefully planned dinner party is coming apart before her very eyes. She comes across as a kinder, gentler Marie Antoinette when she acts like the accidental destruction of her centerpiece dish, a lion-shaped aspic, is the end of the world. Although many have said that Jean Harlow steals this picture, and her talents do shine through, I think Marie Dressler's comic touches really help make the film. For example, when a forty-something secretary mentions that she saw Dressler's character perform "when she was a little girl." Dressler replies that the two must get together some evening and discuss the Civil War. Dressler also makes the very last scene of the movie. As everyone is going into dinner, she finds herself in conversation with Harlow's character. First off, she does a hilarious double-take when Harlow mentions she's been reading a book. Next,Harlow tells Marie Dressler how this book she has been reading says that machinery will soon take over every profession. Marie Dressler looks Jean Harlow up and down as only she could do and says "My dear I don't think you need to worry about that."