My least favorite movie in the world sorry, cinephiles is "Citizen Kane" (1941). Maybe I'm not highbrow enough to enjoy it, but a two-hour tale about a man who pulls himself up by his bootstraps only to turn corrupt in his search for power is just not that interesting. And don't even get me started on "Rosebud."
After watching "Winter Carnival" (1939), written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Budd Schulberg '36, I have a new least favorite. The history of the movie's production is probably its most entertaining aspect.
While doing research for their screenplay, Fitzgerald and Schulberg attended Carnival. In classic Dartmouth fashion, Fitzgerald and Schulberg got so embarrassingly wasted that they were both fired from the project, although Schulberg was later rehired because of his firsthand knowledge of the College and Winter Carnival.
The film tells the story of two sisters attending Carnival. The elder, Jill Baxter, was crowned Carnival Queen of the Snows many years ago. She since married and divorced the duke for whom she left her Carnival date, now a professor at the College. Her younger sister, Ann, is just as impulsive and headstrong as Jill and is crowned Queen of the Snows during the movie. Although Ann has already secured three dates for Carnival in case any of them turn out to be subpar, she entrances both the senior captain of the ski team and a European count. Based on Jill's failed relationship with a dashing foreigner, she contrives to block Ann from eloping with the count. Jill reunites with her old flame, and everyone ends up happy.
The triteness of the movie aside, some aspects are downright strange. Every woman in the movie is depicted as self-absorbed and conceited to the point of absurdity. In one scene, a visiting girl refuses to walk down the stairs to hand a dress to the boy who has come to collect laundry and instead throws it at his head. In another, Ann Baxter gets the ski captain disqualified from the big ski races because she wanders onto the track and trips him. Instead of apologizing, she initially insists it wasn't her fault and then asks him to teach her to ski. He jovially accepts and later appears to fall in love with her.
I don't know about you, but if some random girl ruined one of my last races as a Dartmouth skier and then started yelling at me about skiing near her, I would probably leave her on the mountain and let Ski Patrol deal with her, no matter how cute she was.
It's not only the women in this movie that lack realistic character development. In one scene, Jill Baxter's ex-boyfriend physically forces her to put on an apron and wash the dishes, apparently satisfying some inner manly need to watch women perform domestic tasks.
Despite my general dislike for "Winter Carnival," the movie has shining moments that offer interesting insight into the College's past. I loved seeing 1930s Main Street, which looked exactly the same as it does now, only with older cars.
The construction of the snow sculpture and various old-timey quirks, such as transportation via horse-drawn sled, made me smile.
Ultimately, "Winter Carnival" is a movie you probably shouldn't watch for its cinematic quality.
But much like Animal House was a sensationally ridiculous look into a unique aspect of Dartmouth culture, Winter Carnival is a nice peek into our College's past.
