Imagine that eternal glamour-pants F. Scott Fitzgerald getting wasted at Dartmouth. I can just see the morning-after, campus-wide blitz: "LOST: my generation. Last seen in the basement of Alpha Delta. They were wearing black North Face fleeces, and came and went like moths among the whisperings."
No, I haven't actually LOST: my mind. In 1939, Fitzgerald -- the famed author of "The Great Gatsby," and a notorious alcoholic -- came to Hanover to research a film he was hired to write based on the events of the College's Winter Carnival.
Instead of penning a word, however, Fitzgerald spent his time at the College getting plastered at AD and Psi U.
Fitzgerald was subsequently dismissed from the project in a drunken debacle outside The Hanover Inn, and checked himself into a hospital for three days of recovery.
The film, "Winter Carnival," starring Ann Sheridan, was released later that year without the alcoholic author's input.
The film is in many ways a quaint and light-hearted portrayal of 1930s Dartmouth, where people say things like "Come on glamour-pants, let's go!"
But there's more: it's also a chillingly prophetic vision from the dawn of the Hollywood-era about the culture of celebrity-obsession.
Fitzgerald himself is a product of that obsession; to this day, he's at least as well known for his tortured antics as for his beautiful writing.
At the time that "Winter Carnival" was written, the Dartmouth tradition itself was garnering national attention. Girls were being bussed to the event by the hundreds for what had become one of the East Coast's biggest social events.
As one character in the film notes: "This year's Carnival Queen could be the next glamour girl of three continents!"
Enter jetsetter Jill Baxter (Sheridan), an ex-Carnival Queen, freshly divorced from a European Duke -- the darling of the budding tabloid industry. Think Princess Diana crossed with Lindsay Lohan. Baxter is back at dear old Dartmouth to stop her younger sister from following in her own gilded footsteps.
"I may be the first woman to have received an education at Dartmouth College," she quips.
The lesson she learned is classic: all that glitters isn't gold. Life as an international "glamour girl" isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Baxter is hounded by the media throughout the weekend as she tries to rekindle her "old flame" with a down-to-earth professor.Predictably, the star-crossed pair is doomed by Baxter's restless spirit.
"Tell him I woke up hearing train whistles," Baxter says in the midst of her melodramatic exit. "Tell him not to hate me, too much."
Could've been an Overheard at Collis, honestly.
Baxter's words, however, are contrasted with her sister's navet.
"If I don't get my six hours of sleep, my face will fall off!" the younger Baxter exclaims.
In the end, the serious professor gives in and runs off with Jill, assuring her he can out-run her cut-and-run instinct.
"The papers will be through with you the day you marry me," he says. "Until the day you leave me."
Now there's a Fitzgerald-esque self-fulfilling prophecy, if ever I saw one.
This movie is a must-see for Dartmouth students. Besides its acerbic moments criticizing Hollywood celebrity, the film is so picturesque it makes me want to boot. Remember the days when frat boys asked their special someone to wear their "fraternity pin?" And when that lovely lady replied: "Your pin! Oh Larry, how refreshing, and youthful!"
No, you don't remember that? You must have been so blacked out.
So keep your pin, Larry; my generation woke up hearing train whistles. Just don't hate us, too much. If you lose us, we can be found in the VIP room at the Canoe Club, slamming drinks with the ghost of Scotty F.
