Based on George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s stage play, Dinner at Eight never transcends its theatrical roots, but that’s not such a bad thing considering how many delectable performances director George Cukor extracts from his illustrious cast. Focused on the events surrounding a hoity-toity dinner party being organized by Millicent Jordan (a shrill Billie Burke), the wife of nearly ruined businessman Oliver (Lionel Barrymore), Cukor’s film is a series of intertwined episodes designed to showcase the comedic capabilities of stars Marie Dressler (as aged stage actress Carolotta Vance), Jean Harlow (as calculating, two-timing trophy wife Kitty Packard) and Wallace Beery (as Kitty’s no-good political crook husband Dan). Despite its wealth of witty repartee, the film’s stilted pacing is compounded by Cukor’s flat direction, with momentum all-too-often grinding to a halt thanks to the story’s imprudent interest in unfunny characters (I’m talking about you, Dr. Wayne Talbot). Yet if Dinner at Eight is merely a pleasant trifle, it does provide yet another platform for the magnificent John Barrymore, whose turn as sloshed, suicidal has-been actor Larry Renault imbues this comedy with both biting wit and touching tragedy.
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