Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

SimonJack MGM billed this film as bigger than "Grand Hotel." It was obviously trying to build on the huge success of its1932 blockbuster. Much of the same all-star cast appears in both films. Notable exceptions are Greta Garbo in the first, and Marie Dressler in this second film. Both also are lavish productions. But, where Hotel was a drama-romance, Dinner is billed as a comedy-drama. I think the comedy is in subtle and sparse locations, and that Dinner is much more serious. The variety of characters provide for fine melodrama. The huge cast of notable actors carries the film. This is a movie about business, class, society, selfishness, irresponsibility, sacrifice, love, infidelity, dislike, pride, snobbery, deceit, success and failure. Few of the characters are likable. Even fewer are decent, honest folks. "Dinner at Eight" is a story of many smaller plots that all revolve around the Jordan's dinner. The plot is interesting and it has a solid good ending – when dinner is served at eight. It is a nice study of many characters and their flaws. It is worth watching for the cast alone.

atlasmb I think it would be a mistake to reveal much about the story of this film, so I will deal only with it merits.David O. Selznick set out to create another of his quality productions with "Dinner at Eight", starring an all-star cast.Billie Burke, with her lilting voice, plays Millicent, the wife of a shipping business owner. She is self-consumed and intent on creating a perfect dinner party.Lionel Barrymore plays Oliver Jordan, her husband and a man with several problems on his hands. Madge Evans plays Paula, their daughter who is engaged to a young, attractive man who is cut from very regular cloth. She is involved with another man--one who offers a more exotic and challenging relationship.Wallace Beery plays Dan Packard, a coarse and aggressive businessman who is invited to the dinner at Oliver's request. His wife Kitty is played by Jean Harlow. She's a platinum-plated gold digger whose relationship with Dan is similar to that between Billie and Harry in "Born Yesterday".Edmund Lowe plays Dr. Talbot, a "masher" who treats several characters.Marie Dressler plays Carlotta Vance, a retired actress who flaunts a lifestyle she cannot sustain. Ms. Dressler often plays the matronly socialite for laughs; here she is a fully-developed character who is allowed to show her real acting talent.John Barrymore plays Larry Renault, an actor who is on the down-side of a career onstage and in film. His is one of the bravest portrayals I have ever seen, as his character's personality and situation are written so close to his own.The main strength of this film is the story, which allows each character to be developed, giving emotional depth to the story. It is well worth seeing.

David Conrad "Grand Hotel" took the fifth-ever Best Picture Oscar in 1932, and the next year MGM figured there were worse things to do than to make a copy. The studio cast a lot of the same actors—burly Wallace Beery and both John and Lionel Barrymore—and picked a similarly dark, comedic play to serve as the basis of the script. Yet whereas "Grand Hotel" follows the intertwining lives of ostensibly-everyday people such as workers and businessmen and secretaries, "Dinner at Eight" belongs more to the tradition of mannered, parlor-room plays. Its humor and pathos are less broad, and indeed are so narrow that it feels almost as if 1930s Hollywood is gazing at its own naval. Characters talk about wanting to see the new Garbo picture (at least Garbo is not in this film; she had been in "Grand Hotel") and two of the chief protagonists are washed-up stars who hadn't made the transition to talkies (a topic Hollywood would revisit again and again over the decades, to great effect almost every time). The Academy wasn't interested this time, though, and issued not a single nomination to "Dinner at Eight." It took in less than half of "Grand Hotel"'s revenue at the box office. Yet "Dinner at Eight" is a fun movie for classic film fans all the same, not only because we now recognize it is a last gasp of the pre-Code era, with innuendo and heated bedroom exchanges galore, but because of remarkable performances from Marie Dressler, Billie Burke, and Jean Harlow. There are also a number of references to "this depression," and nearly every character struggles with financial insecurity, so viewers interested in Hollywood's depictions of the Great Depression should not overlook it.

Michael O'Keefe This classic has two immediate things going for it: being directed by George Cukor and produced by David O. Selznik. And a very well-healed ensemble cast doesn't hurt a movie either. At first you think this is a comedy, but humor can turn serious rather quickly. This fast paced film has Park Avenue socialite Millicent Jordan(Billie Burke)throwing a dinner party for a gathering of upper-crust high society friends. Under the surface are some depressing situations. Millicent is so self-absorbed, she doesn't realize her shipping magnet husband Oliver(Lionel Barrymore)has been hiding bad health and the fact his company may be going bankrupt. He hopes that business tycoon Dan Packard(Wallace Beery)will give him a loan; but he has his own problems with vivacious wife Kitty(Jean Harlow). Former theater actress Carlotta Vance(Marie Dressler)arrives from England in dire monetary straits and is hoping to sell her stock back to Oliver. John Barrymore portrays Larry Renault, an over-the-hill actor losing a battle with the bottle and tempted with suicide. All this proving that high society is not all bubbly, but dour as well. Others in the cast: Lee Tracy, Madge Evans, Edmund Lowe, Jean Hersholt and Phillips Holmes.