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It would be very easy to affectionately dismiss Dinner at Eight as all-star Hollywood swill. Its pre-screwball soap-opera elements are hard to deny: a bunch of Tinseltown's finest trading quips and suffering the proverbial slings and arrows is hardly the stuff of nuance and insight. Most of the film's simple pleasures are accordingly right there on the surface, but if Dinner at Eight is largely wish-fulfillment fluff, the wishes being fulfilled have the shadow of the Depression hanging over them. The spectre of failure and financial ruin gives the proceedings frisson beyond mere melodramatic mechanics--not enough to make them more than cracking good fun, but enough to charge that fun with better-than-throwaway power.

Round up the usual suspects--socialite Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke) is having a dinner, and it's best not to disappoint her. She's oblivious to the fact that her industrialist husband Oliver (Lionel Barrymore) is in dire financial straits, as well as that her guests are a ragtag band of ne'er-do-wells and has-beens: aging star Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler) was forced to sell the stock that put poor Oliver in his fix; faded actor Larry Renault (John Barrymore) is alcoholic and in denial about his now-worthless name; and Dr. Wayne Talbot (Edmund Lowe) may be prominent physician, but he's also a secret philanderer. The only person with nothing on his conscience is Dan Packard (Wallace Beery), mainly because he's a brute out to ruin Oliver. Of course, his wife Kitty (Jean Harlow) is fooling around with Dr. Talbot.

I suppose Mrs. Jordan should be warned that her circle includes a bunch of histrionic clichés that no well-bred lady should tolerate. Dinner at Eight is basically an emotional hedonist that careens from cheap witticism to low tragedy as its whims dictate--it's not a narrative, it's a clearinghouse of devices and situations calculated to give the audience a high good time. Still, there's gravity anchoring that fun: I can't remember another frivolous movie where so many of the sympathetic characters teeter on the brink of financial ruin, or where one character is driven to suicide; apparently, the audience that made this a hit had a steely reserve unthinkable today. There's an elephant in the Jordans' well-appointed apartment, which is the thought that it all might be snatched away at any time.

This is not to say that the film actually addresses the issues of the day. Instead, it merely harnesses them to grease the wheels of resonance and keep the entertainment machine operational. (While there are some pretty old saws here, they mostly work exactly as planned.) But even though the cast acts suitably grand and movie-starrish, the fact is they're fragile titans; the film's sick fascination comes from watching these latter-day saints walk a tightrope above the fiery furnace endured by us mere mortals. It's "Survivor: Dinner at Eight", and if it's quick to dispel its clouds at the very end, at least it exploits their menace for every grab in the book.

Warner's DVD release of Dinner at Eight does the movie proud. Transferred from a well-restored print, the full-frame, b&w image is remarkably sharp and detailed for such an early talkie, despite the stubborn grain and occasional speck of damage. The Dolby 1.0 mono sound is perhaps slightly faint, but it's also clear and unblemished by extraneous noise. Extras include the TCM special "Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell" (46 mins.), a recounting of the psycho-dramatic life of Hollywood's premiere loose-woman archetype. With Harlow having ricocheted as she did from manipulative mother to older men to oppressive image to suicide scandal, any film of her life would have to try hard not to be gripping. Still, one has to put up with the constant nuisance of Sharon Stone's hosting/narration, which only serves as reminder that they don't make 'em like they used to. Meanwhile, Come to Dinner (22 mins.) is a Vitaphone short sending up the main feature, with a mixed bag of imitators overacting shamelessly. Though it's got its moments (the John Barrymore clone is addicted to sliced lemons), it's as strident, self-impressed, and spotty as any "Saturday Night Live" sketch. Dinner at Eight's trailer completes the package.-Travis Mackenzie Hoover

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