Even the weirder artists of the twentieth century have been attracted to the allure of Hollywood filmmaking, and Salvador Dali was no exception. In the fall of 1941, the surrealist painter hosted a masquerade party at Pebble Beach during one of his regular visits to the town. Called "Surrealism Night in An Enchanted Forest," the fundraising event, intended to assist European refugee artists, brought out a number of stars, including Bob Hope and Ginger Rogers. It was here, the story goes, that Dali became attached to a major studio production called Moontide. The great German emigre Fritz Lang was hired to direct the movie, and asked Dali to create a three-minute nightmare sequence for the film. Unfortunately, after the incident at Pearl Harbor later that year, Twentieth Century Fox deemed the project too bleak. Lang was replaced, and Dali's nightmare sequence went with him.

Although inspired by the movies, Dali didn't always have the easiest time making them. He would get another chance to inject his hallucinatory vision into American cinema with the hypnosis scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, but it's his unrealized projects that truly indicate the scope of the painter's ambition. So many ideas, such little time. Dali: Painting and Film, a breathtakingly unique exhibit currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, surveys Dali's completed cinematic works in addition to tidbits from the ones that never came to fruition. Marvelously structured to show how his paintings were intentionally cinematic, the exhibit contains all the obvious highlights from Dali's movie career alongside lesser-known productions. The importance in film history of his collaborations with Luis Bunuel remain uncontested; two large screens in separate rooms showing Un Chien Andalou (where the opening eye splicing retains its original gross-out impact) and L'Age D'Or attest to that. Fewer visitors, however, might know about Dali's collaboration with the Marx Brothers on a deliriously strange movie that sounded too good to be true.

Actress Lucille Ball's birthday is today; she was born 95 years ago, and died in 1989. I'm quite fond of watching the actress in her early films, with amusing supporting roles in movies like Dance, Girl, Dance and the 1937 film Stage Door. Stage Door was originally a Broadway play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, in which aspiring stage actresses fought the demon Hollywood to survive. The film adaptation retained very little of the play -- director Gregory La Cava (My Man Godfrey) was well-known for his "off-the-cuff" shooting style, and encouraged the team of actresses to contribute their own stories as part of the script. As a result, the ending is not typical or predictable.

Much of Stage Door's action takes place in a women's theatrical hotel, and the inhabitants include Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers (both in the above photo), Constance Collier, Ann Miller (who was all of 14), and Eve Arden. Lucille Ball has a small role as an out-of-work actress from Seattle, considered a hick town back then. Hepburn is the new girl in town, determined to succeed as an actress by using logic and intellect, and constantly sparring with her wisecracking roommate Rogers.

The last time I watched Stage Door, I was surprised by the way that aspects of the plot still felt relevant: the unemployed women trying to survive with a sense of humor reminded me of high-tech workers at happy hour in Austin, for example. Some of the more melodramatic plot elements don't hold up as well, but Stage Door is still quite entertaining ... and available on DVD.