Today -100: January 11, 1922: Of mutual defense, strikes, and naked ballet

Arthur Griffith is elected by the Dáil Éireann as its president, effectively president of Ireland, after a rather contentious session.

Italy is begging to be allowed into the mutual-defense treaty Britain and France are working on.

White South African gold miners go on strike against the mineowners employing too many black miners. In case I don’t get back to this, here’s a little hint: the big strikes in this period by white miners fail while strikes by black miners succeed, because guess who does the actual work.

Naked ballet dancer Celly de Rheydt (sometimes called Rheidt) and her co-dancers go on trial in Berlin for making photographs and a film of said naked dancing. The judge has the film (which I can’t find online) played in the closed court, “frequently stopping the reel for a closer examination”. He then demands a special live performance, just for him, in a theater. “American visitors who have since seen her modified ‘beauty dances’ say they never saw anything like them before. Among these American art experts were pillars of the community, mostly with wives and families across the Atlantic.”

Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives, the first million-dollar movie, premieres. The studio cut about one-third of von S’s version, as was the custom, and are actually still cutting it day by day as it airs. The commentary track by  Richard Koszarski on the DVD/Blu-ray is quite good.

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