Pick up any biography or autobiography of the glitterati of the Swinging Sixties or Hedonistic ’70s and you’ll find mentions — plenty of mentions — of the surrealist painter and Spanish bon vivant Salvador Dali.

He might have been infatuated with Mia Farrow, was quite taken with Alice Cooper, and everybody who was anybody wanted to bask in “the presence of Dali.” But only a chosen few went so far as to live, for a time, in “Daliland.”

Ben Kingsley brings a larger-than-life figure to a small, somewhat abridged and compact film of the Dali of those days — a legend for nearly half a century, more famous for his parties, his public appearances and his mustache, a surrealist who had outlived surrealism. His colorful turn as the self-mythologizing eccentric grandly enlivens the new film by the director of “I Shot Andy Warhol.”

“Daliland” is slight but fun, a gloss on Dali-the-Legend that leans on Kingsley’s twinkle and is all the warmer for it.

Director Mary Harron and screenwriter John Walsh (“Pipe Dream”) serve up an “in the presence of greatness” dramedy about Dali, his domineering, dominatrix wife Gala (Barbara Sukowa) and their “salon” of orgies, dalliances, wild spending and a last burst of creativity in New York and Spain, as seen through the eyes of a young assistant (Christopher Briney) who falls under Dali’s spell and into their drama.

James is a failed artist from Idaho lucky enough to land a job with the gallery that handles Dali in New York. A single delivery to the Dalis at their suite at the St. Regis Hotel introduces him to their moveable feast, an endless party with actors and models revolving around Dali’s personality, Gala’s lecherous gaze, Dali’s transvestite muse (Andreja Pejic) and the machinations of Captain Moore (Rupert Graves), Dali’s long-suffering but indulgent manager.

One look at James’ “angel face” and Gala is thinking impure thoughts and Dali MUST have him for his painting and life assistant. James’ dealer/boss (Alexander Beyer) agrees, only if the kid will spy on Dali and keep the old master on task, creating paintings for a gallery opening in a few weeks.

Dali calls the kid “San Sebastian,” because of James’ “beauty.” Our witness is there to look pretty, dodge Gala’s groping, and to run errands — delivering cash to and from the flat and Dali’s various licensing deals and sales. James soon becomes a guest at the parade of lavish lunches and teas Dali throws for his “friends,” witnesses the artist tolerate withering abuse from Gala, who is carrying on an open and open-checkbook affair with the star of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and gets a bead on what makes the man tick, on his genius and the performative life and image Dali has created and maintained at great expense.

Like his idol Picasso, Dali’s taken to paying his lavish dinner bills by check, drawing on them to ensure the check will never ever be cashed.

James also meets a Dali hanger-on/model (Suki Waterhouse) who is here to introduce the Idaho innocent to cocaine and threesomes. If you know how these “My Week with Marilyn” tales play out, you know she’s also here to break his heart.

And no coming-of-age story would be complete without the eye-opening discovery of the sketchy side of “the brand,” the artist as a businessman preying on collectors, or preyed-on by unscrupulous print makers and dealer intermediaries.

Harron and Walsh bite off too much to truly chew through here, with Dali taking his new protege into flashbacks that show how he (Ezra Miller makes a fine young Dali) met the wife of his surrealist poet-friend Paul Éluard. He dubbed the former Elena Ivanovna Diakonova “Gala.”

But Kingsley makes the man — his hands shaking too much to paint with ease, or to allow the easy application of the dyes and eye-liner he used for his extravagant public appearances — human, a bit kinky, and comical, always speaking of himself in the third person, something captured on chat shows and in Adrien Brody’s amusing version of Dali in “Midnight in Paris.”

All is beauty, life is at its most hedonistic living under a constant fear of death, and everything is a performance — even an interaction with a waiter.

“No No No. Dali does NOT want spin-ACHE. Dali ABHORS spin-ACHE. Dali can only eat food with defined SHAPES, that the mind can clearly grasp…like OYSTERS!”

Sukowa makes a fine villain, one among many “using” Dali. But Kingsley is the reason to visit “Daliland,” allowing us to “be in the presence…of genius” and be irritated, titillated, amused and maybe a little depressed about the trap our imperious host has flounced into and embraced like the doom he dreads but so feverishly craves.

Rating: unrated, drug abuse, nudity, sex

Cast: Ben Kingsley, Barbara Sukowa, Christopher Briney, Rupert Graves, Suki Waterhouse, Andreja Pejic, Alexander Beyer and Ezra Miller.

Credits: Directed by Mary Harron, scripted by John Walsh. A Magnolia release.

Running time: 1:36