List Price: $19.98You Pay Only: $17.99 You Save: $1.99 (10%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 9780790744575
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
ISBN: 0790744570
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: March 01, 2005
Running Time: 111 minutes
Sales Rank: 10823
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: January 12, 1934
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Social climbing millicent and oliver jordan throw a dinner for a bunch of new york society types each of whom has much to reveal. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 03/01/2005 Starring: Marie Dressler Lionel Barrymore Run time: 111 minutes Rating: Nr
Amazon.com:
MGM originally promoted Dinner at Eight by touting the 'all-star cast,' but this is no run-of-the-mill omnibus picture. On the contrary, rather than cramming as many big names as possible into a lumbering vehicle, the movie's impeccably crafted script (by Edna Ferber and Herman J. Mankiewicz) and direction (by George Cukor) gave some immortal screen luminaries a chance to shine. For sheer bravery, John Barrymore's achingly poignant performance as Larry Renault, a washed-up matinee idol who has 'outlived everything but his vanity,' is unmatched. Barrymore's brother, Lionel, is equally touching as shipping magnate Oliver Jordan. Oliver vainly tries to save his family's century-old firm, at the same time hiding his financial and health troubles from his wife, Millicent, played to hysterical perfection by Billie Burke. The Great Depression is presented in microcosm as Millicent frets about throwing the ultimate society dinner, oblivious to the world tumbling down around her. She is forced to invite to her precious party such undesirables as crass financier Dan Packard ('He smells Oklahoma!'). Even worse in Millicent's eyes than Packard (Wallace Beery, doing an impressive steamroller imitation) is his social-climbing wife, Kitty (Jean Harlow, never funnier than she is here, malingering in bed gobbling chocolates, or braying at her husband: 'I'm gonna be a lady if it kills me!'). Be sure to watch for Harlow's brief encounter with Marie Dressler, who brings an extraordinary winking wisdom to the role of aging star Carlotta Vance. As the two enter the dining room in the film's final scene, Harlow makes an offhand remark that elicits from Dressler one of the great screen double takes of all time. Like so much of Dinner At Eight, the moment is priceless. --Laura Mirsky
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - stunning character studies with comedy and tragedy that is as good as it gets
Dinner At Eight is an outstanding movie with great acting, a fine plot even if a bit complicated, and a wonderful cast! The movie held my attention every step of the way; and it's a much more artistic film with much more social commentary than I expected.
When the action begins, Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke) is obsessively planning a dinner party. Unbeknownst to Millicent, her husband Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore) is suffering from serious, life threatening heart problems--and their steamship freighter enterprise is going broke after a century-long life of being the family business.
As if that weren't enough, there's plenty more people with serious financial and personal problems that showcase human foibles as well the toll the depression took on even the wealthiest of people after the stock market crash. We meet Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler), an older actress who is broke. Carlotta sells her stock in the Jordan shipping business to stay alive; and she's not the only one selling her stock on that fateful day when so much of the Jordan stock is sold that the family fortune just might be in jeopardy. There is Wayne Talbot (Edmund Lowe) and his wife Lucy (Karen Morley) who tolerates Wayne's never-ending marital infidelities; and we also see that the only people climbing up the ladder are the comparatively crude and unsophisticated couple Dan and Kitty Packard (Wallace Beery and Jean Harlow).
Throughout the movie there are vignettes that display how cruel ... Read More
Rating: - One of the best!
This classic has it all - wit, a fast-paced plot, and a stellar cast. A must-have for all!
Rating:  - High society during Great Depression
This movie was adapted from the work of George Kaufman and Edna Ferber by Frances Marion and Herman Mankiewicz, casting some of the best names in Hollywood. Brilliantly directed by George Cukor, the story is a character study of four individuals during depression era (1933), affected by love, greed, possible poverty, and infidelity. John Barrymore offers one of his finest performances as a down and out actor, Larry Renault, caught up with drinking, and in desperation commits suicide as he has no other way to go in a world that doesn't accept losers. Lionel Barrymore offers another great performance as Oliver Jordan, a shipping magnate and the CEO of a company, which is in financial ruins, and it is close to collapse unless a financier helps to save the company. Burdened with his heart problems, and his scatterbrained high-society wife, Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke) preoccupied with hosting a dinner party for rich and famous, and his only daughter in love with much older Larry Renault, is confronted with the realities of the Great Depression. Dan Packard (Wallace Beery) plays a devious and crooked financier who plots to gain from Oliver Jordan's company, and his unfaithful wife, Kitty Packard (Jean Harlow) who threatens him to do a good deed by spilling beans about his dirty scheme to Oliver Jordan, when Dan likes to file for divorce because of her infidelity. Marie Dressler as an aging star, Carlotta Vance is very entertaining; in spite of her own insecurities, she offers her wisdom to Paula Jordan ... Read More
Rating: - Dinner at Eight
Sharp ensemble piece (scripted by Edna Ferber and Herman J. Mankiewicz) gets the full MGM treatment, with peerless direction by Cukor and uniformly fine work from the stars. Both Barrymores are particularly good, along with the fabulous Dressler, whose final line caps a sublime evening out. Don't miss this grand old chestnut.
Rating: - One of the great sophisticated pre-code films
"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 ... Read More
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