Dinner at Eight | |
---|---|
Film poster
|
|
Directed by | George Cukor |
Produced by | David O. Selznick |
Screenplay by |
Frances Marion Herman J. Mankiewicz Additional dialogue by Donald Ogden Stewart |
Based on |
Dinner at Eight by George S. Kaufman Edna Ferber |
Starring |
Marie Dressler John Barrymore Wallace Beery Jean Harlow Lionel Barrymore Lee Tracy Edmund Lowe Billie Burke |
Music by | William Axt |
Cinematography | William H. Daniels |
Edited by | Ben Lewis |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date
|
August 29, 1933 |
Running time
|
113 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $435,000 |
Box office | $2,156,000 |
Dinner at Eight is a 1933 American Pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor. Adapted to the screen by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz from George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's play of the same name, it features an ensemble cast of Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Lee Tracy, Edmund Lowe, and Billie Burke.
Dinner at Eight continues to be acclaimed by critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports 100% approval among 17 critics, with an average rating of 8.6/10.
One week before her next society dinner, Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke) receives word that Lord and Lady Ferncliffe, whom she and her husband Oliver (Lionel Barrymore), a New York shipping magnate, had met in England the previous year, have accepted her invitation. Overjoyed by this social coup, Millicent is oblivious to Oliver's lack of enthusiasm about the dinner and her daughter Paula's (Madge Evans) preoccupation about the impending return of her fiancé, Ernest DeGraff (Phillips Holmes), from Europe. Millicent fusses about finding an "extra man" for her single female guest, former stage star Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler), who resides in Europe.