Come and Get It! Dinner at Eight

Author's Rating:

Pros: Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore, Sets and Costumes

Cons: A little too evenly divided between the various story segments

The Bottom Line: 
An old fashioned blockbuster with an all star ensemble cast shows how the other half lives in 1930s Manhattan.

Author's Review
Dinner at Eight (1933)

Lots of these old classic movies have been recently released on DVD by Warner Bros after being out of circulation for many years. Dinner at Eight was one of the first blockbusters; a follow on to the previous year's Grand Hotel, the original blockbuster, which featured an ensemble cast of the top stars that won an Oscar and proved there was a market for these talky dramatic exposés of society.  Whereas most of the films produced in a given year had a single star or at most two, this film had a full eight listed above the title.

Dinner at Eight is a comedy/drama that at first glance has not aged well but does give a good idea how devastating the Great Depression must have been as it depicted current conditions to the so-called upper class, all of whom are shown to have their underlying problems, many related to the economy.  I have a feeling this movie will have a new vogue with its release now because of the economic times we are currently experiencing that echo the desperation of the Great Depression and are giving the current generation of Americans (2009) a taste of how dire hard times can be. Knowing our economic situation was not far from a big crash like they were living under here gave the movie a new resonance when I viewed it again on DVD.

The screenplay is based on the 1932 Broadway play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber about a high-society dinner that implodes.

The dinner is the reason, but the events leading up to it are shown as the scenes switch among the invitees and that is the real story.  This was released before the Production Code began to be enforced in 1934 and thus has a more racy tone than subsequent films.  There are segments covering adultery, alcoholism, and dirty business dealings that would have been objected to by the Legion of Decency and other organizations advocating film censorship.

Directed by George Cukor and starring Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Billie Burke, and more;  Billie Burke is planning her big society dinner featuring an off-camera British lord, which is going to be her big break into society (she hopes).   Her husband (Lionel Barrymore) is a shipping magnate with a hundred year old company that is going on the rocks - but nobody knows but him - he thinks. 

The various other stars are invited to the party. Wallace Beery is a cutthroat financier that has designs on Barrymore's company; Marie Dressler is a former star who is a bit overripe; John Barrymore is a male version of the same - a washed up film star that has taken refuge in alcohol. Jean Harlow is a spoiled hatcheck girl who is kept by husband Wallace Beery in a gilded cage consisting of an all white bedroom, jewelry, and all the chocolate she wants to eat.  She has an ongoing affair with her doctor, who comes to treat her imaginary ailments.

The various story lines play out showing the desperate measures each of the players has to take to support their lifestyles, with various comic and tragic outcomes.  One criticism I have is the too-even division of screen time between the various actors because some segments were not as interesting as others and should have been curtailed in favor of more time for the good parts.

The one person that is oblivious to all the economic turmoil seems to be Billie Burke - the hostess of the planned party.  She goes through all kinds of changes trying to make the party a success. Her character with its hysterical whining has the effect of nails scraping on a black board but it is a good performance showing a clueless social climber out of touch with reality.  Jean Harlow is a hit as well as she ties the boorish Wallace Beery's hands with her sharp observations and big mouth. The rest of the actors do a good job as well and I think viewers who like seeing how the rich people lived in the 1930s would enjoy this film.

The Warner Bros DVD is presented in B&W, in full screen format as seen in theaters, with a 111 minute running time.   The movie has a couple of good features in the extra content section including a Warner Bros/Vitaphone parody of the movie, the comedy short Come to Dinner that I found had some good laughs. Sharon Stone also hosts an hour long feature on Jean Harlow that has some good moments.  Stone needs to keep her day job, though based on her segments.

Anybody who likes classical Hollywood movies would be a good viewer for Dinner at Eight.  But eat before you come because the dinner never gets served.

Also see Grand Hotel.