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Dinner At Eight (1989)
Released By: Turner Home Entertainment   Rating: Not Rated   In Theaters: N/A
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Studio: Turner Home Entertainment
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: Ron Lagomarsino
Language: English
Official Website: N/A
Theatrical Release: N/A
Home Video Release: N/A
Cast: Charles Durning, Ellen Greene, Harry Hamlin, Lauren Bacall, Marsha Mason
Published ID: 2582
UPC: N/A
Plot: Dinner at Eight is a TV remake of the 1933 MGM film of the same name; both films were adapted from the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. While the basic plot point of a social-climbing woman (Marsha Mason) throwing a best people dinner party has not dated all that much, other elements prevalent in the 1933 version were due for an overhaul 56 years later. The aging, near-impoverished stage actress played con brio by Marie Dressler in the original becomes a jet-setting literary raconteur (read: trash novelist) in the form of Lauren Bacall. And the alcoholic matinee idol portrayed by John Barrymore in 1933 is transformed into a Pacino type (Harry Hamlin) with a drug and attitude problem for the 1989 version. While not exactly improvements, these alterations do not stand out like sore thumbs, as do many past attempts at updating old material. Only Ellen Greene, in Jean Harlow's role as the floozielike wife of a corrupt businessman, falls short of the original. Produced by actress Shelley Duvall, the 1989 Dinner at Eight was first shown on December 11, 1989 over the TNT Cable network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
IDDateTimeTitleReviewHelpfulVotesTotalVotes
Witless, charmless, unimpressive. Except for Hamlin's abs.
Added 10/5/2001
Truly awful, this. Bacall has all the subtlety and comic timing of...well, Lauren Bacall when miscast and misdirected. John Mahoney has some redeeming moments, and Harry Hamlin (in the John Barrymore role) isn't really half-bad; once you accept that his character would do shirtless stomach crunches to impress his young girlfriend. (Sure, Barrymore was brilliantly hammy...but never beefcake. Nobody ever asked to see HIS abs.) All in all, an embarrassment that isn't even Bad Campy Fun. It's just Bad.
6 out of 7 people found this helpful.
WHAT were they thinking?
Added 10/17/1998
Whoever took it into his mind to do a TV-movie version of the classic 1933 Dinner at Eight should be lashed until he faints. Badly-cast and ineptly re-written, this horror is actually painful to behold. If this is the only version of Dinner at Eight your video store has, then for goodness sake just read a book tonight. END
7 out of 8 people found this helpful.
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VHS
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