Calendar: June 11

A Year: Day to Day Men: 11th of June

The Sun King

June 11, 1936 was the opening day of the International Surrealist Exhibition.

The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from June 11 to July 4, 1936, at the New Burlington Galleries in London’s Mayfair, England. The exhibition was marked both by the high quality of the exhibits and by the fact that Andre Breton, Salvador Dali and many another European Surrealists came over for the occasion. The opening day stopped the traffic on Piccadilly due to the swell of the crowds and, over the weeks that followed, it forced the British arts establishment to reappraise what art actually was as well as what an exhibition could be.

Surrealism’s main flag bearer in Britain was Roland Penrose, a wealthy young artist. A meeting on the Rue de Tournon took place between him and a precocious young poet called David Gascoyne, who had become passionate about surrealism, and had just completed a book about it. The two men got talking about how extraordinary it was that, while Paris was undergoing a seismic art revolution, a few hundred miles away in London no one knew anything about it. They decided to change all that, with a show to jump-start the British imagination.

In the end, some 392 paintings and sculptures were assembled at the New Burlington Galleries. True to the surrealist notion of “objective hazard” (a random but ultimately fortuitous happening), the show was beset by problems which, added to the planned surprises, made it a veritable festival of the best that surrealism had to offer. First, there was the business of transporting the art: two days before the opening, a consignment was seized by Customs and two pieces – one by Wilhelm Freddie showing the naked bodies of dead soldiers, another by the Argentinian Leonor Fini showing young men dancing naked in the twilight – were turned back on grounds of decency. The hanging of the show happened just hours before the opening, only to be rearranged once again at the last minute.

The painter Sheila Legge showed up dressed in a long, white satin gown, her face obscured by roses and holding an artificial leg wearing a silk stocking. The poet Dylan Thomas offered the guests teacups full of boiled string. Andre Breton gave the opening speech dressed entirely in green. Salvador Dali gave his lecture wearing a diving suit with helmet. During the lecture, it became apparent that he was slowly suffocating inside his helmet; it had to be pried off to save him. He continued the lecture with a slide show, with the slides presented upside down.

Calendar: May 18

A Year: Day to Day Men: 18th of May

A Bright New Day

May 18, 1927 marks the opening day of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California.

Grauman’s Chinese Theater is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame. After the success of his Egyptian Theater, Sid Grauman secured a long-term lease on the property site at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard from Francis Bushman, the owner of the existing mansion located at that address. The firm of Meyer and Holler, with Raymond Kennedy as the principal architect, was contracted to design a “palace-type theater” of Chinese design. Grauman financed the theater’s two million dollar cost and owned one-third interest in the theater. His partners, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Howard Schenck owned the remaining two thirds.

During construction, Grauman hired Jean Klossner to formulate an extremely hard concrete for the forecourt of the theater. Norma Marie Talmadge, the American actress and film producer of the silent era, is traditionally recognized as the first person to put a footprint in the concrete. The theater’s third founding partner, Douglas Fairbanks, was the second celebrity to be immortalized in the concrete. Nearly two hundred Hollywood celebrity handprints, footprints and autographs are now imprinted in the concrete of the theater’s forecourt.

The exterior of Grauman’s theater is meant to resemble a giant, red Chinese pagoda. The design features a huge Chinese dragon across the facade, with two authentic Ming Dynasty guardian lions guarding the main entrance and the silhouettes of tiny dragons along the sides of the copper roof.

One of the highlights of the Chinese Theatre has always been its grandeur and décor. In 1952, John Tartaglia, the artist of nearby Saubt Sophia Cathedral, became the head interior decorator of the Chinese Theatre, as well as the theatre chain then owned by Fox West Coast Theaters. Celebrities also contributed to the theater’s decor. Xavier Cugat painted the trees and foliage between the pillars on the side walls. Keye Luke painted the Chinese murals in the lobby. The lobby features programs from some of the Hollywood premieres that have been hosted there, as well as a collection of classic movie costumes.

The Chinese Theatre was declared a historic and cultural landmark in 1968, and has undergone various restoration projects in the years since then.In 2000, Behr Browers Architects, a firm previously engaged by Mann Theaters, prepared a restoration and modernization program for the structure. The program included a seismic upgrade, new state-of-the-art sound and projection, new vending kiosks and exterior signage, and the addition of a larger concession area under the balcony.

Calender: February 14

A Year: Day to Day Men: 14th of February

Sports Attire

On February 14, 1931, the film “Dracula” directed by Tod Browning is released throughout the United States.

“Dracula”, starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, was produced by Universal Studios and is based on the 1924 stage play “Dracula” written by Hamilton Deane and John L Balderston. The play was based loosely on the novel by Bram Stoker.

Bram Stoker’s novel had already been filmed without permission as “Nosferatu” in 1922 by the German expressionist film maker F.W. Murnau. Bram Stoker’s widow sued for plagiarism and copyright infringement, and the courts decided in her favor, essentially ordering that all prints of “Nosferatu” be destroyed. Enthusiastic young Hollywood producer Carl Laemmie, Jr. also saw the box office potential in Stoker’s gothic chiller, and he legally acquired the novel’s film rights.

Decision on casting the title role proved problematic. Initially, Laemmle was not at all interested in Lugosi, in spite of good reviews for his stage portrayal. Lugosi had played the role on Broadway, and to his good fortune, happened to be in Los Angeles with a touring company of the play when the film was being cast. Against the tide of studio opinion, Lugosi lobbied hard and ultimately won the executives over, thanks in part to him accepting a paltry $500 per week salary for seven weeks of work.

Due to the limitations of adding a musical score to a film’s soundtrack during 1930 and 1931, no score had ever been composed specifically for the film. The music heard during the opening credits, an excerpt from Act II of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, was re-used in 1932 for another Universal horror film, “The Mummy”. During the theatre scene where Dracula meets Dr. Seward, Harker, Mina and Lucy, the end of the overture to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Numberg can also be heard.

Today, “Dracula” is widely regarded as a classic of the era and of its genre. In 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. It was ranked 79th on Bravo’s countdown of The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. To many film lovers and critics alike, Lugosi’s portrayal is widely regarded as the definitive Dracula.

Calendar: January 25

A Year: Day to Day Men: January 25

Honor Among Men

January 25, 1924 marks the opening date of the first Winter Olympics held at Chamonix, in the French Alps.

In 1911, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) proposed the staging of a separate winter competition for the 1912 Stockholm Games, but Sweden, wanting to protect the popularity of the Nordic Games, declined. Germany planned a Winter Olympics to precede the 1916 Berlin Summer Games, but World War I forced the cancellation of both. Soon after the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, an agreement was reached with Scandinavians to stage the IOC-sanctioned International Winter Sports Week.

On January 25, 1924, the ‘first Winter Olympics’ took off in style at Chamonix in the French Alps. Spectators were thrilled by the ski jump and bobsled as well as 12 other events involving a total of six sports. The “International Winter Sports Week,” as it was known, was a great success. It was so popular among the 16 participating nations that, in 1925, the IOC formally created the Winter Olympics, retroactively making Chamonix the first. In 1928 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially designated the Winter Games, staged in St. Moritz, Switzerland, as the second Winter Olympics.

At the Chamonix games, Scandinavians dominated the speed rinks and slopes, and Norway won the unofficial team competition with 17 medals. The United States came in third, winning its only gold medal with Charles Jewtraw’s victory in the 500-meter speed-skating event. Canada won another hockey gold, scoring 110 goals and allowing just three goals in five games. Of the nearly 300 athletes, only 13 were women, and they only competed in the figure-skating events.