GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

JohnHowardReid Anything more unlike an M-G-M film of the later thirties or forties would be difficult to imagine. It doesn't have the M-G-M visual look because Ced Gibbons didn't do most of the art direction for this one and so Barrymore's office looks appropriately dingy and old-fashioned and the Jordan home looks fusty and late Victorian. Oddly enough, Jean Harlow's apartment does look like Gibbons' work, being done all in white, while Harlow models some ravishing Adrian costumes.Mankiewicz's script is a brittle comedy of manners, played to perfection by a talented cast under Cukor's direction. Whilst larger than life, the performances are not allowed to degenerate too far along the road of theatrical posturing. It is a tribute to Cukor's skill that such noted scene-chewers as Lionel B, Wallace B, John B, Marie D, Billie B and May Robson can play together at all, let alone so convincingly ensemble and all comparatively subdued. Jean Harlow is not outclassed and in her arguments with Beery, the sparks really fly. The support cast is great too, particularly Grant Mitchell as an unwilling guest. The only player who doesn't really impress is Edmund Lowe who seems to have strayed in from some "B" picture. Not only is he utterly unconvincing, he's charmless too. In fact the two qualities are related - he's unconvincing because he's so charmless.The screenplay crackles with wit, which its age has not dimmed. Only the drama (the wrestling for control of Jordan's shipping company; a has-been super-egotistical actor planning a come-back on the stage), now seems somewhat clichéd and naive.

bigverybadtom My mother and I watched most of this movie, expecting it to be a comedy (from what the box said). Comedy? There was not a single laugh or even smile to be had. The movie ranged from boring to unpleasant, and there were plenty of big stars but nary a likable or sympathetic character in the lot.The movie stars a wealthy New York woman who wants to throw a dinner party for the purpose of social advancement, with her husband reluctantly going along. She invites over a wealthy British couple who are coming to the United States, and invites a number of other people to have the proper number, as well as the right mixture of males and females. But everyone has some sort of dark secret; the couple's daughter, who has a fiancée, has fallen in love with an actor whose career is failing; the husband's company is in serious financial trouble; a former actress is also in financial difficulty; a bullying former miner is secretly buying out the husband's company's stock, and his wife is having an affair; and this is just a sample of the betrayals and intrigues that are going on.This could have had the makings of a comedy, but we found no jokes or any other reasons to laugh. Nor did we end up caring what happened to any of the characters in the story. Pass up this dinner invitation.

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.

Rodrigo Amaro With the last sounds of the frightening echo coming from the 1929 Economic Crash in Wall Street "Dinner at Eight" delivers ruthless and unsympathetic characters who are trying to live the best lives they can get with glamour, style, away from their husbands and wives but together with their lovers, even though most of them are doomed to failure. The stage play of this might be interesting, funny and warmful but George Cukor's film with all the classic stars from MGM didn't add anything to his career simply because is boring, tedious to the fullest and we, as audiences, have no other place to go other than watch this film because it is often mentioned in lists of great films of all time, and when you see the constellation of stars present in this tragedy, names like John Barrymore, Marie Dressler, Billie Burke, Lionel Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery among others you really would expect something at least decent. It turns out to be a very boring movie that has no point, no direction, no meaning and it's not even a good entertainment.It's just a plain boring picture with a almost ensemble casting. Almost because there's something about the acting here that makes this film worth of a few stars. Harlow and Beery were great, they have the funniest scenes in the movie as a rich couple that seems to never go along right; Lionel Barrymore and Marie Dressler are quite well too; John Barrymore plays a figure that resembles himself, a decadent and drunk actor who lives in a hotel without having money to pay for, and desperate to find a good play to act. He's the most interesting in the film and his solid dramatic acting made this more watchable. Billie Burke was completely annoying as the lady who invites all those rich people for the so mentioned Dinner at Eight, a confusing and strange celebration of the bourgeoisie futility.And to think that Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote this (in a few years away, in the shadows of his drunkenness and trying to recover his fame he wrote what would become the best film of all time, and that is "Citizen Kane") and George Cukor ("Born Yesterday") were behind all this mess. A play that takes one and a half hour to get to its title, the disastrous dinner has to be badly translated to the screen. Nothing happens, the characters lives are filled with sorrow, failed things and everyone's pretend to be happy (or at least there's some who get fully loaded with drinks so that's why the so called happiness) and the meaning....well, there isn't one really.For a drama it is boring (sorry, I can't find another word to say about this film) and for a comedy it is very unfunny with one or two well humored moments. For the most of its core it's silly, silly, silly. I had a bad headache before and during the film and it got real worse after it. But barely I would know that my next one would be even worst than this ("The Family Stone" but please do read my review of it) and that's why "Dinner at Eight" gets 3 stars, this and because of the casting. 3/10