Editorial: Winter Carnival—A Dartmouth Tradition & Film

To make it through the short, cold days and the long, frigid nights of winter at Dartmouth, more than just Keystone is needed. Hence every February the College reprises its time-honored tradition of Winter Carnival: to introduce some much-needed excitement. Although no longer the grand event it once was, Winter Carnival remains a venerable Dartmouth tradition.

Winter Carnival was introduced in 1911 by the then-Dartmouth Outing Club president, Fred Harris ’11, as a celebration of winter sports. Harris invited students from nearby colleges to compete in ski racing, ski jumping, and snowshoe racing. Following the sporting events, Harris and company hosted an array of social events on campus to commemorate the occasion, including an “Outing Club Ball.” 

An instant hit among students, the carnival quickly became an annual event, and it garnered a reputation that reached well beyond Hanover. Hundreds of college-age women, mostly from the Seven Sisters consortium, began traveling by train to the Norwich/Hanover station in order to attend Winter Carnival as Dartmouth students’ dates. The carnival’s popularity soon became so great that, in 1916, National Geographic Magazine saw fit to dub the event the “Mardi Gras of the North.” 

In 1923, organizers added a new contest to the festivities, in which judges would select a “Queen of the Snows.” Such a “Queen” was crowned every year through 1972, when—upon the admission of women to the College—the carnival committee wisely decided to end the contest.

Perhaps most famously, Winter Carnival was the subject of a film made by the Hollywood producer Walter Wanger ’15. Entitled simply (and rather unoriginally) Winter Carnival, the film was released in the summer of 1939 and featured authentic footage shot by a second unit at that year’s carnival. The film has since become a cult classic at Dartmouth, not just because it incorporates this footage but also due to a legendary story associated with the film’s production, an oft-told tale that is substantiated by documents viewable in the Rauner Library.

Wanger was eager to produce a film about his alma mater’s carnival, and, to compose the screenplay, he dispatched two writers to Hanover: Hollywood scion and recent Dartmouth graduate Budd Schulberg ’36; and the renowned F. Scott Fitzgerald (having recruited the latter primarily for his name recognition). Wanger wanted the men to soak in the carnival and formulate a draft while a second unit completed location shooting and shot “backgrounds”—to later be used for in-studio process shots, employing “rear-screen projection” behind the actors.

Fitzgerald’s involvement proved disastrous. He got drunk en route to Hanover and continued to drink upon his arrival at the Hanover Inn. In writing the screenplay, he and Schulberg, who was enamored of the elder writer, procrastinated incessantly. They spent their time on campus sharing bibulous reminiscences and failed repeatedly to decide upon a central storyline, much to Wanger’s frustration. The inebriated Fitzgerald also embarrassed Wanger before a contingent of Dartmouth faculty to whom the producer was attempting to present him. 

Ultimately, Wanger fired both writers from the project. In a fit of desperation, however, Wanger soon rehired Schulberg, who, alongside his best friend Maurice Rapf ’35, managed to eke out a screenplay for the project. Schulberg was later to reflect upon his screenwriting experiences with Fitzgerald (to whom he remained close until the latter’s death in 1940) in fictional form in his 1951 novel The Disenchanted, which is today widely regarded as a masterwork.

For its part, Wanger’s Winter Carnival has several diverting moments and some sharp dialogue, but in all it’s a sappy, underwritten affair. From a production standpoint, it relies too heavily on clumsy, distracting rear-screen projection. Narratively, several story threads unfold at once, periodically converging: Ann Sheridan portrays a recently divorced duchess—and former Carnival Queen—who finds herself back at Dartmouth, potentially to rekindle her romance with an old boyfriend (Richard Carlson), who is now a Dartmouth professor. Sheridan’s character has a younger sister (Helen Parrish) who tries to follow in her footsteps, seeking to be crowned Queen and pursuing a misguided love interest in the person of a visiting European count. The Editor of the Daily Dartmouth rechristens the paper as the Dartmouth Graphic and pursues questionable editorial policies, while his newspaperman father (the great character actor Robert Armstrong) attempts to get a big story out of the Sheridan character’s presence on campus.

Winter Carnival is dated, far more so than many other films of its era, but its footage of Dartmouth’s actual 1939 Winter Carnival is a marvel to behold. Indeed, the film includes wonderful shots of mammoth ice and snow sculptures, and it memorably integrates extraordinary sequences of ice skating, skiing, and especially ski jumping. In addition to correspondence between Fitzgerald and Schulberg, the Rauner Library houses a good deal of footage and much primary-source material from the production of Winter Carnival.

The film was poorly received by critics, and it recorded a significant loss at the box office. Amusingly, the Catholic Legion of Decency named the film “one of the five objectionable pictures of 1939,” presumably because it features both a divorcee and a college professor who indulges in double whiskies. In its year-end round-up (released in December 1939), The New York Times listed the film as one of the worst of the year. Maurice Rapf even wrote in his memoir that his association with Winter Carnival prevented him from getting another screenwriting job for several months after the film was released(!).

The critics and the Catholics might have loathed it, and it’s admittedly not that great a film, but at Dartmouth we ought to hold special affection for Winter Carnival. Produced and written (and scored, by Werner Janssen ’21) by Dartmouth alumni, it offers a charming portrait of Winter Carnival in its heyday. Although the carnival itself is no longer the great attraction that the film depicts, we—as Dartmouth students—should take pleasure in continuing the tradition. I recommend that all Dartmouth students watch Winter Carnival to get the full flavor of the weekend.