If The Dartmouth had the opportunity to publish a column under the headline, "Smooth Babes Invade Campus," it would create quite a stir on campus. Unfortunately, that only happens in fiction.
The scene in which the protagonist holds up this front-page news story from The Dartmouth Daily is one of the few scenes in "Winter Carnival" (1939) that actually elicited a genuine laugh from me. Throughout most of the movie, I sat with the uncanny feeling that I had seen a movie just like it before: girl goes home (or back to her alma mater), girl meets boy she dumped for cooler foreign boy (now the ex-exotic ex-husband), girl decides she actually likes first boy and they embrace happily ever after (but not before he forces her into an apron and satisfies some bizarre need to watch domesticated ladies wash the dishes).
The girl in question is former Carnival queen Jill Baxter (Ann Sheridan) who returns to Dartmouth only to find herself face-to-face with her old flame no longer a boy, he is now Professor Weldon (Richard Carlson). The movie follows them as they ski, dance and banter their way to a newfound love. It's a decently pleasant movie to watch as long as you keep in mind that Carnival today is nothing nothing like what is depicted on-screen. There's still skiing, and the snow sculpture and Baker Tower covered in snow, but I'd wager that College students spend a lot more time inside than outside.
F. Scott Fitzgerald must have understood that in 1939. The "Great Gatsby" author was slated to pen the movie's script, and left the glamor of Hollywood for quiet Hanover to observe some College activities. But in classic Dartmouth style, he got trashed before production began and threw a drunken fit outside the Hanover Inn. Fitzgerald was subsequently fired from the job and spent several days recovering in the hospital.
The film that was eventually made is unintentionally funny not in its dialogue, but in its quaint references to an era long past. Remember when college guys had to go to nearby women's schools to find dates? Did that freshman posing as a senior really just give her his fraternity pin to pledge his commitment? Only in an oldie can you get that and "Winter Carnival" is an oldie, but it is far from a classic.
The movie gives a rather dull account of one of the College's longest standing traditions. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe in 1939, this was exactly what people were looking for when they arrived for Carnival. Still, the lackluster depiction of Dartmouth, lumped with too many romantic close-ups and a watery plot, can make your head hurt. I know I still can't figure out how a double-date between the lead characters led to a crying baby and Jill revealing her motherly side in what should be a very youth-oriented film.
The fact that the film doesn't really seem to know what to do with itself seriously weakens its intent, if we even know what that intent was. Were the filmmakers trying to show their love for this school? Or is it just a showcase of winter events geared toward people outside the Dartmouth community? Along with a flimsy subplot revolving around Jill's younger sister who appears to be following in her sibling's questionable footsteps "Winter Carnival" tries unsuccessfully to invoke some element of seriousness, demonstrated when Professor Weldon asks Jill, "When are you going to wake up and find out it's not Winter Carnival every day?"
It's a solid question. At least for us, I think we've come to terms with the fact that our Winter Carnival undertakings are fleeting and we won't be wasting our time like the dull characters of this even duller movie.
