Dinner Party (1945)

★★★★★ · Straight up horrifying · mdxi · 2003-05-02

I've watched a lot of these movies, including all the "classics" covered by MST3K, and this one is way up on the Scary List. The sledgehammering of the message of propriety through guilt, conformity, and public shame is as shocking to a modern as, one supposes, the ease of access to pornography would have been to a Victorian. The real irony, of course, is that this movie was made either just before or just after the end of hostilities with Japan, which was often targetted in progaganda films as being unAmerican by dint of its culture of shame, self-censure, and suppression of the individual…

★★★★★ · i had tears in my eyes! · nephildevil · 2005-12-04

From laughing, this film is totally hilarious!!! An absolute must see, funny as hell!!!!!!!!

★★★★★ · A MUST SEE!!!!???? · 62Baby · 2008-01-11

Man, you got to see this!!! I wasn't around in the 40s but did people (teens???) really act like this??!!! Too funny. The olive scene is great, too much. I almost expected her to spit it out across the table. And, what do you do with a pit???heheheheIt would have added to the dinner party. Maybe making it a little less stressful and more normal. By the way, why did Bob have to serve the food?? If the housekeeper was there why didn"t she do it? Or was this not the norm in the 40s!? And the narrator was beginning to make me feel paranoid. I actually felt sorry for those people there. I'm still…

★★★★★ · Gluttons for punsihment · Spuzz · 2003-04-18

All through this monstrosity I was shaking my head and wondering who the heck ARE these people that believe that high manners is a sure way to be accepted in society? Again, this is a frightening film to behold, as a dinner party from hell starts off DISASTROUSLY. Why, the napkin is in the wrong place and the butter knife is incorrectly placed! More dinner problems are faced, as the guests stop and wonder if they've done the right thing all throughout the meal, which makes for one bizarre sight. Having good manners, the narrator says, makes for a good party. But just by looking at this film…

★★★★★ · Dinner Party (From Hell) · DrAwkward · 2004-03-06

It's a rare treat to see one of these social control films directed at the upper middle class ("Habit Patterns" is another classic in this genre) because they're always psychotic and usually calculated to inspire high levels of paranoia about minor points of etiquette. *Dinner Party* is a particularly stressful example, because rather than instructing, the narrator points out the fauxs-pas of the dinner party guests in a relentless voiceover fast enough to be a sportscast of a horse race. This print of the film is also broken in many places, which adds to the jumpiness of the experience. The…

★★★★★ · My dinner with Kafka. · dynayellow · 2003-09-02

How did people manage to get any food down their throats in the 1940s? This film presents a world of dinner ettiquette which is supposed to make sure that maximum enjoyment is had by all, but really just presents a group so terrified of doing anything Incorrect that they spend the entire meal either copying how others are eating (to their own shame), or politely looking away as the host literally trembles before the idea of serving a portion of meat. Amazing stuff.