Billie Burke: Not for Mating

One reason to watch classic film comedy is to note how punchlines age. This scene is from "Dinner at Eight" (1933) -- an American stage classic that became an American film classic. It features Billie Burke as Millicent Jordan whose dinner party plans are falling apart. The punch line that shows its age is 1:55 into the scene, Millicent says of a young man seen on the beach: "He wore even less than the girls!" For someone who grew up in an age of bikinis, this is strange yet funny observation. But for someone hearing it in the 1930s, the joke is coherent, given the fuller bathing suits of both genders at that time. Meanwhile in the same scene, Hattie Loomis (Louise Closser Hale) has one punchline that time can't touch: "They're invited for dinner ... not for mating!" Based on George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's play with the screenplay by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz.

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• Billie
• Burke.
• Dinner
• at
• Eight.
• Screenwriting.

[Queenbee2001]

Billie Burke should have gotten 4 Oscars for that line!  WOW! Luv IT!

[83survivor]

Watch as her expression changes at 3:35-3:37....so hillarious. I love the way she went from happy to disappointed in such a short while.

[mywordsfly]

"See if you can get him first. Let nature take its course."

[tob606]

her acting is interesting. All these people are probably dead RIP