Snow Gets in Your Eyes

Described as a short musical romance, "Snow Gets in Your Eyes" is short on romance and short on music, though the Dandridge Sisters appear briefly. The comedy also comes up short. This is a rather uninspiring twenty minute film that revolves around an indoor skiing competition which includes no suspense or prodigious talent.

Really there is not much to recommend this film. No laugh out loud moments, no tear-jerking scenes, no hum-worthy melodies.

Roger Converse has just lost his job at the sausage counter of the department store he works in. To get his job back and win the heart of Virginia Grey, he enters the competition for the ski jump off the enormous mountain built in the store in this musical short subject.

That mountain is a huge prop for one of MGM's sound stages, but those sound stages are big, and that's largely the point of this short, and fairly typical of MGM's shorts during this period. There's always something bizarre in them, because MGM spent huge sums of money on their shorts. While the Pete Smith Specials, the Fitzpatrick Traveltalks, the cartoons, were intended to make money, shorts like this were loss leaders, and the money had to show on the screen.

Ski competition in a department store in New York City? That's what this short is about and you'll have to see to appreciate the transition from outside ski slopes to the department store ramp, which is handled with skill.

The plot of this musical comedy two-reeler is simple: A guy who sells sausages at the department store is enamored of a salesgirl who works down the aisle from him. Hoping to impress her, he takes ski lessons so he can win the competition. Sandwiched between the light comedy sketches are two delightful musical treats, "Girl Wanted," and, would you believe, "The Harlem Yodel!"

The real stars of the show are the wonderful Dandridge Sisters, Dorothy Dandridge, Vivian Dandridge, and Etta Jones, each uncredited. The beautiful Dorothy Dandridge was to go on to a highly successful movie career including a nomination for the Academy Award for her role in "Carmen Jones," not long before her tragic death from a drug overdose.

The title is derived from lame yet harmless attempts at slapstick humor, centering on Charles Judels as Schlitz and Chester Clute as King Winter who gets fake "snow in his eyes" when he attempts to introduce the competition. "Snow Gets in Your Eyes" came out over a decade before the popular hit tune, "Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes," dominated the nation's musical charts and thus is not a parody of that song but rather a pun on "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," from the 1933 musical, "Roberta."

This isn't a great short, but it's mildly entertaining, and there is a ~3 minute song and dance number called "Harlem Yodel" that is actually really great, which features black musicians The Dandridge Sisters along with the Cats and the Fiddle, and it's actually quite good and definitely the highlight of the film. The other musical number that precedes it is a bit of a throwaway. The plot isn't terribly interesting, but the indoor ski jump in a department store (which is a central part of the story) was pretty unique.

Snow Gets In Your Eyes is cover-your-eyes awful! However, it's the kind of awful that still manages to retain a tiny bit of charm and curiosity for the viewer. From the ridiculousness of the premise to the flat acting to the uneven direction, there's not much to warrant a recommendation. But "not much" does not mean nothing. With the way traditional gender roles are treated, as well as the portrayal of minorities, a good deal of this short film is unintentionally hilarious! If you watch it during a lazy day, it's worth 20 minutes of your time.