Dinner at Eight

by George S. Kaufman, Edna Ferber

During the Great Depression, society matron Millicent Jordan has bigger she is planning a dinner and Lord and Lady Ferncliff have just accepted. As her daughter Paula's romantic complications mount and her search for an "extra man" to complement former stage star Carlotta Vance proves fruitless, the lady and all her guests are caught in a roundelay of wealth, loss, love, betrayal and the disintegration of the accepted social order. This stage hit originally opened on Broadway in 1932, became a classic MGM film and was later revived at New York's Lincoln Center in 2003 to great acclaim.

Dinner at Eightopened at the Music Box Theatre, New York City, on October 22, 1932and ran for 232performances until closing in May, 1933.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Theatre, Drama

259 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

People note American playwright George Simon Kaufman for many collaborations, including Dinner at Eight (1932) with Edna Ferber and You Can't Take It with You (1936) with Moss Hart.

This theatre director, theatre producer, humorist, and drama critic, known as "the great collaborator," wrote very few plays alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_...

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 1 out of 5]

This cardboard play is known today only because of the terrific film version, written by Herman Mankiewicz, Frances Marion, Donald Ogden Stewart -- and directed by the wonderful Geo Cukor. The play itself is a snore, which can be said of most of the Kaufman oeuvre.

[Sapphire Detective · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because I started watching the film version from the 30's and was immediately confused. Here before me was this drama, ostensibly adapted from a play by George S. Kaufman, and yet there wasn't any of the humor I'd expect from a Kaufman story. So in the interim before returning to the movie, I rushed up to my library and grabbed the play version, collected in an anthology of Kaufman plays. Immediately I found it better than the movie, because here was the humor that had been missing! Or if the humor was there, someone forgot to tell the actors, which is bizarre, because I know Lionel Barrymore and Wallace Beery can be funny if they try. It's not a full comedy, this play, and eventually it did peter out (to the point that I feel the movie actually resolved plotlines better than the original play did), but for that initial promise of humor, I gotta give it some credit.

My rating: 3.75/5 (rounded up)
Would I own/re-read?: Probably not.
TW: Debt, Adultery, Suicide, Age-Gap relationship
Does the animal die?: The dog, Benito Mussolini (name changed in the film) remains fine over the course of the play.

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this play made for an excellent 1933 movie adaptation, it somehow does not quite work on the page. The various characters who will gather for the title meal have their various personal melodramas going on, none of which ever amounts to very much overall. Plus, the plot runs out of steam at the conclusion and does not have much of an ending. Not hard to read but very little in the way of a reward.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read, a few other George Kaufman plays in the past, and enjoyed them. He wrote some of the best plays in the 20's and 30's. Dinner at eight, is one of my favorite movies. Its one, that I can watch anytime and find myself laughing out loud at one part and then find myself, emotionally upset the next. So, when I found a copy of the play, that had actual screen shots from the movie, throughout the play, I knew, I had to have it.

The play, is very close to the movie. The few differences is, there is a bigger storyline around the Jordan's housekeeper, butler, and chauffeur. And the ending, as well. I think, the movie's ending was better, it feels we get a better closer with how the movie ends, to the way the play ends.

Overall, this was a fun read. I enjoyed looking at the pictures that was included from the movie and the cover, is absolutely beautiful.

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dinner at Eight, screenplay by Frances Marion, Edna Ferber, Herman Mankiewicz, based on the play by George Kaufman
10 out of 10


Dinner at Eight is a wonderful motion picture, included on The New York Times Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list - https://www.listchallenges.com/new-yo... - benefiting from a fabulous cast, with splendid John Barrymore in the role of a failing, former star, Larry Renault, equally brilliant Lionel Barrymore as the old, sick Oliver Jordan, resplendent Jean Harlow as Kitty Packard and a few other phenomenal artists…

Marie Dressler is hilarious and imposing, noble and so dazzling as Carlotta Vance, an appreciated, legendary artist who is overwhelmed when people she meets express their awe, but then they continue in a clumsy way by saying…when they were kids, they were fascinated to see her…and by this making clear that Carlotta Vance is so advanced in age- nevertheless, she is so smart, imaginative, amusing and self-deprecating as to joke herself: ‘do not tell me that your great great grandfather loved my acting’ or something of the kind.
Oliver Jordan used to be a successful businessman, whose stock in his shipping business was very valuable, but now it is so devalued, his health is so poor that he seems unable to stop even his friend, Carlotta, from selling her shares and besides, the one he hoped to support him, the rather crooked, Trump-like con man Dan Packard, is in fact double crossing him and trying to get hold of shares to speculate and send the poor man down…again, in the manner of the most over rated business man ever, the crook from the White House…

Oliver Jordan is trying to have the Dinner at Eight to help him overcome the serious financial problems, perhaps the bankruptcy he may be facing if the worst scenario comes to pass – and if the ruthless Dan Packard has his way and he is not stopped by…his wife, Kitty Packard aka once the superstar Jean Harlow – and thus he asks his wife, Millicent Jordan, to take care of the details, send the invitations, even to Packard, the one who does not want to come, until he finds he would have the chance to meet someone he had been wanting to get close to for so many years and therefore he is keen on attending.
Kitty Packard has an affair with her doctor – better said she used to have one, for the man is not interested anymore, though as to the future outcome we might be somewhat unsure – and the maid knows about it, when challenged by the brutal, impolite, chauvinist, rude, what can we say but yet another face of the same Fat Donny Trump, husband she covers for the missus, but afterwards she is quick to ask for one of the many valuable bracelets, as some form of bribe, to avoid blackmail…besides, the rich woman has so many…

Another secret is hidden by the daughter of Dan and Millicent Jordan, Paula, who is involved with the much older, former famous actor, Larry Renault, who has a massive drinking problem and what is worse, he is now forgotten and rejected by studios and producers and when given a part, it is so insignificant as to have only one line or maybe a couple and facing this trauma, descent into absolute obscurity could be too much to take for the alcoholic who has no money for drinks, for the room in the hotel from which the manager comes to evict him, though politely, under the pretext that some loyal customers are coming and want this exact room and there are n others available…
The relationship with the much younger, though also married Paula Jordan might have done something to rejuvenate the failing actor, but his exaggerated drinking, the impecunious stage of his life, the prospect of having no credit with…well, anyone, for even the bellboy would not bring a bottle seeing as the hotel, other joints would not accept to sell him anything waiting forever to be paid, might prompt him to take a dramatic decision…

Meanwhile, Kitty confronts her husband, tells him about having an affair, though she does not say who it is and the cuckold husband is so dumb as to exclude the doctor from the list of suspects – when the maid says the wife had only one visitor she knows of and that is the doctor, Dan Packard is ridiculous in dismissing this line of questioning outright – and the woman take a rather impressive, feminist stand against the crook and she is even forcing him to reverse the strategy he had been pursuing, of crushing financially poor, sick Oliver Jordan, or else she would tell him and everyone else what loathsome dealings the man had been pursuing…
Oliver Jordan is already looking like he might have a heart attack and die any moment now, but when he finds from Carlotta Vance that she had sold her shares to some unknown individual – a cover for Packard – it looks like this is the end, figuratively and literally for the man that might still have a chance when Kitty kicks the legs of the vicious husband, is then ready to expose him and his gruesome actions and then maybe he would be pushed to walk back what he had done, before it is too late

Meanwhile, Millicent Jordan is facing another disaster, although this one is amusing and of a different nature and much smaller in scale, dealing with the missing butler, the fact that the most important guests cancel and fly to Florida to treat some ailment, the main dish is ruined, and there are many other obstacles and impossible circumstances to cope with…such as the number of guests, which must be even but seems to be impossible to arrange in that manner and other such adversities…

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

🖊 Fun, fun, fun! Snappy dialogue, believable characters, intelligent scenes of high New York society and the nouveau riche.

⬛️ 1932 stage play version.
જ⁀🔵Read the stage play script on Internet Archive.

🎥 1933 movie version with Jean Harlowe, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Marie Dressler, Billie Burke.
༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺

[David]

Not quite as comic as one tends to associate with George S Kaufman. Perhaps Edna Ferber‘s involvement accounts for a darker production. There are lots of funny moments in this play, but on the whole consequences are fairly serious and much is left unresolved at the ending although fairly clearly foreshadowed – again, most of it definitely in the unhappy ending category.

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really enjoying this play, until the end. Because it wasn't really the end. The final scene was missing. I know this because none of the conflicts were resolved, and they evidently *are* resolved, according to a plot synopsis I found online. Boo.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like the ending because it felt like there wasn't enough closure.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yay! Another 1930s comedy of manners (with a healthy sprinkling of drama)! The 1920s and 30s really was a great time for the English-language stage, wasn’t it?

Here we have a well-worn centerpiece: a dinner party where all of the guests have their own problems and everything goes wrong. But this is all about the days leading up to the dinner and for all that it’s funny, the play tackles some serious issues in brief but meaningful ways. Given the number of characters, this could easily be an overwhelming production, but it works, and the characters are all surprisingly well-drawn given how quickly they come on and off stage (honestly, every actor cast in a production of Dinner at Eight would have something to sink their teeth into). But what struck me (yet again) is that, for all women in these plays are limited by society, they have more depth and substance than the vast majority of female characters in modern theatre and film. They’re not set dressing with boob jobs next to fat slobs: they’re thinking, feeling individuals who find a way to exist within the limited opportunities available to them, somehow ending up more nuanced than their modern, sky’s-the-limit counterparts. It’s simultaneously fascinating and depressing. But back to Dinner at Eight: Recommended.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really pretty middling with a lack of the spark that keeps Stage Door rolling. Wooden characters in scenes that seem to follow too strict a pattern and then some bizarre melodrama to cap it off. And unfunny to boot.

[Carly Svamvour]

Is this the same as the movie . . . dunno' . . . we liked the movie.

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a soft spot in my heart for these old comedies. I think they hold up well.