- 2 January, Hollywood:
 The latest news about David O. Selznick, until recently the production chief at RKO Radio, is that he has been hired to produce pictures for MGM by studio boss Louis B. Mayer -- who also just happens to be Selznick's father-in-law. Selznick's appointment will help MGM fill the serious gap in the production schedule caused by the recent illness of Irving G. Thalberg. Selznick first made his name as a producer and assistant to B. P. Schulberg at Paramount from 1923 to 1931. He then hoped to establish himself as an independent producer, but found this to be extremely difficult in a Hollywood dominated by the giant studios. David Sarnoff, president of RCA, which itself was owned by RKO, was not himself a part of the movie establishment and hired Selznick in October 1931 to replace William Le Baron and head the RKO studio. Selznick succeeded in turning RKO into a more efficient operation, but a contract dispute led to his resignation last month.
 - 11 January, New York: The recently opened Radio City Music Hall, situated at Rockefeller Center and the most spectacularly lavish place of entertainment in the world, is now functioning as a movie theater. The inaugural film was Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of General Yen, a Columbia production starring Barbara Stanwyck and Nis Asther. With its 6,200 seats, Radio City Music Hall has now overtaken the 6,000 Gaumont Palace in Paris as the biggest movie theater in the world.
- 14 January, Paris: Release of René Clair's latest film Quatorze Julliet (July 14th), which stars Annabella, Georges Rigaud, Pola Illery, Paul Olivier and Raymond Cordy.
- 20 January, Prague:
 The Czech film Ecstasy, from director Gustav Machaty, is evidence of great success that flirts with scandal. The audience will not soon forget the 10-minute scene where the heroine bathes totally nude at night in the moonlight, clearly revealing the superb figure of the 19-year-old actress Hedy Kiesler. She plays a child-bride who gives herself to a stranger, a roadway engineer. After she is granted a divorce, she refuses to go away with her lover when her ex-husband commits suicide. Shot in three versions, Czech, French and German, Ecstasy is more than a melodrama, and the bold naturalist scenes are not the only ones worthy of comment. The film, shot partly on location, is a beautifully visual poem to nature, which awakens the sensuality of the heroine and reveals the ecstasy of physical love. Machaty, an actor turned director, already created a sensation in 1929 with a film full of eroticism -- the appropriately named Erotikon.
- 22 January, Paris: Jean Vigo has finished the location shots for Zéro de conduite (Zero for Conduct). Filming was started in the studios on 24 December but was interrupted by bad weather and the director's poor health.
- 23 January, Los Angeles: RKO has declared itself bankrupt and has been placed under judicial supervision, resulting in drastic cutbacks in spending and the dismissal of a large number of employees.
- 2 February, Hollywood: Louis B. Mayer, the president of MGM, has canceled actor Buster Keaton's contract for "a valid and sufficient reason." Keaton has just completed the filming of What! No Beer? for the studios.
 - 4 February, New York: Barbara Stanwyck stars in Ladies They Talk About from Warners with Preston Foster, Lyle Talbot and Dorothy Burgess. As a tough-talking, satin-wearing moll, Stanwyck bides her time in San Quentin, waiting for the day she can shoot -- and then fall for -- the man who put her away. Stanwyck will follow this in July with Baby Face, with George Brent, in which she sleeps her way from basement speakeasy bartender, literally floor by floor, to the top floor of a New York office building. Bank submanager Jimmy McCoy (John Wayne) finds her a job in the bank only to be cast aside as she hooks up with the bank's vice-president (Henry Kolker), then president (Brent). When Wayne complains of not seeing her she says: "I'm working so hard I have to go to bed early every night." Whether she's wisecracking, being sultry, or "innocently" crossing her legs and batting her lashes, Stanwyck radiates a smoldering sensuality that's very powerful. Notorious at its release, Baby Face is one of the films that will cause the Hollywood film industry to adopt a censorship code.
- 9 February, New York:
 A rescuer has come to the aid of debt-ridden Paramount in the extravagantly curved form of Mae West, whose She Done Him Wrong is convulsing audiences from coast to coast. Mae's first starring vehicle has been adapted from her Broadway play, Diamond Lil, and allows her to sashay seductively around handsome young Cary Grant, effortlessly deflate her equally pneumatic rival Rafaela Ottiano, and spray steamy one-liners all over the set. The double meanings Mae wrings out of songs such as "I Like a Guy What Takes His Time" and "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?" have outraged certain self-appointed moral guardians but work wonders at the box office. West started on stage at the age of six. By 1914 she was a vaudeville star billed as "The original Brinkley Girl" and inventor of the "shimmy" dance. In the 1920s she began to write, produce and direct her own plays. The first of them, Sex, earned her a 10-day jail sentence on charges of obscenity, but did not deter her from sardonically parading all the absurd delights of the aforementioned subject. She made her movie debut in 1932 in Paramount's Night After Night, only fourth-billed but on a salary of $5,000 per week for 10 weeks' work and writing her own lines. Paramount has increased her salary to $8,500 a week, but will she stay out of trouble and one step ahead of the censors she holds in such contempt?
- 1 March, Los Angeles: The release of Thunder Over Mexico, presented as being Russian director Eisenstein's "American" film, has caused a violent international campaign to be waged against Upton Sinclair. The novelist, who initially backed the director's ill-fated undertaking, ¡Que Viva Mexico!, is accusing Eisenstein of improperly using the negatives from that unfinished film.
 - 2 March, New York:
 An uncharted skull-shaped island on which the inhabitants are held in thrall by a giant ape; a bombastic film producer intent on bringing him back alive; a swooning blonde, helpless captive of the monster as he rampages through New York City; a pulsating climax at the very top of the Empire State Building as the ape is machine-gunned to death by a swarm of US Army warplanes. These are the ingredients of King Kong, now astonishing audiences at Radio City Music Hall. Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper have produced this epic adventure for RKO. Fay Wray is the Beauty with whom the Beast falls fatally in love, but the real star is Kong himself, the creation of brilliant engineer Willis O'Brien. The giant gorilla was brought to life on the screen by O'Brien's stop-frame animation of six 18-inch-high models, each with a metal skeleton, sponge-rubber muscles and a skin made of rabbit fur. A giant bust of Kong, operated from inside by three men, was used for close-up work.
Use this link to download a sound clip of Robert Armstrong directing Fay Wray's screen test in the movie. (.6Mb, MP3 format)
 After 18 months of exhausting filming, Cooper reportedly says to Schoedsack, "Let's kill the son-of-a-bitch ourselves." So, it's Cooper at the controls and Schoedsack behind the machine gun as a fighter plane makes its final pass and delivers the killing shots to the screen's tallest and darkest leading man. This is film fantasy at its finest.
- 3 March, Berlin: Release of Max Ophüls' latest production for UFA Liebelei. Magda Schneider's wonderful performance and Ophüls' subtle direction transcend the plot in this film version of Arthur Schnitzler's play.
- 5 March, Shanghai: There have been stormy reactions to the release of Cheng Bugao's Wild Torrent. It is the first Chinese revolutionary film with the peasants as the central point of interest.
- 6 March, Los Angeles:
 It is exactly three years since the American film companies agreed to a new code of self-censorship. They have now recognized that a stricter enforcement of its provisions has become necessary, although it is not yet certain at precisely what date in the near future this will come into effect. It is likely that new rules will have an adverse effect on moviemaking, and there is very little doubt which films and stars the crackdown is aiming at. The release of Scarface a year ago had been delayed many months due to a censorship dispute, and during the past several months there have been a few raised eyebrows over MGM's Red Dust. Jean Harlow has developed into that studio's sexiest star, while Mae West has had a spectacular success with her first starring film, She Done Him Wrong, which opened a month ago. Even that delightful cartoon character, Betty Boop, who singlehandedly introduced "sex" into the animated film, may not be spared by the new and stricter monitoring. Film Daily recently published a letter from a movie theater owner in Georgia complaining about "smut in cartoons," and it is not difficult to guess who he has in mind. At this rate, even King Kong may not be spared censor's cuts over his provocative pawing of Fay Wray...
- 9 March, New York: Release of Lloyd Bacon's musical 42nd Street, with Warner Baxter, Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers.
- 23 March, Berlin: The premiere of Fritz Lang's film Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse has been canceled on the orders of the government's censors.
- 28 March, Berlin:
 Fritz Lang has vanished from the capital, and for good reason. Since 30 January, events have moved rapidly with Adolph Hitler's nomination to the Chancellery. Josef Goebbels became the head of the Ministry of Information and Propaganda on 13 March. He immediately demonstrated his power over the cinema by canceling the premiere of Lang's film Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse on 23 March. Two days later, Lang was rather surprised to receive a call to go to Goebbels' office. Feeling ill at ease in his striped suit and stiff-collared shirt, Lang went to the Ministry of Propaganda and wandered through the long corridors filled with armed men. Goebbels received him amiably and explained his version of the situation. The film was confiscated because he found the ending displeasing; this was when all the Nazi slogans are put into the mouth of a criminal. Eventually, Goebbels came to the reason for the chat. He offered the director the job of becoming supervisor of production at UFA. A film on William Tell could be made first. Lang tried to put Goebbels off by saying to him, "My mother had Jewish parents." "We'll decide who's Jewish," retorted Goebbels. Lang asked for a few hours to consider. That evening, he took a train to Paris.
- 29 March, Berlin: After the hasty departure of Fritz Lang from Germany, Goebbels' spokesman has explained that the director's Dr. Mabuse was banned because of its subversive nature, which is likely to "incite people to anti-social behavior and terrorism against the State."
- 27 April, Hollywood:
 Producer Darryl F. Zanuck has just set up his own independent production company called 20th Century Pictures, in partnership with producer Joseph M. Schenck. Zanuck, first as a scripwriter, then production executive and, finally, head of production at Warner Bros. during the 1920s and early 1930s, has played a major role in the transformation of that small company into one of the leading Hollywood studios. However, a dispute over studio policy led to his recent resignation. It was not long before Zanuck, known as one of the most talented young producers in Hollywood, was able to set up his new company with Schenck, the president of United Artists. Not surprisingly, the 20th Century Pictures will be distributed through UA. Since UA has been suffering from a shortage of quality productions, the combination of Zanuck's expertise, his own stars under contract as well as access to those at MGM (which has backed this new company) may be the boost needed to remedy this situation.
 - 30 April, Paris: Under pressure from the government, the board of censors has refused to allow an exhibition license for the release of Zero for Conduct, the film by the young director Jean Vigo. This medium-length project, produced by Jacques Louis-Nounez, had already undergone problems during shooting. It was not finished at the Buttes-Chaumont studios until 22 January, two weeks behind schedule. When shown to the press at the beginning of this month, it was very badly received. Both the subject and its treatment are clearly of a subversive nature. Drawing on his own memories of school, Vigo tells of an uprising at a dreadful boarding school in a Paris suburb, organized by four pupils because of the petty restrictions on them. Lively and poetic, Vigo's film openly exalts the spirit of rebellion and makes fun of the teaching profession, things that the censor will not tolerate. The headmaster, who is played by a long-bearded dwarf, is both literally and figuratively looked down on by the boys.
- 4 May, Paris: Release of MGM's Red Dust, directed by Victor Fleming and starring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable.
- 23 May, Rio de Janiero: Humberto Mauro, who has been making films since 1925, is presenting Ganga Bruta, his latest work filmed in the Cinedia studios.
- 1 June, Washington, DC: According to statistics published by the Commerce Department, American movie attendance has dropped by 56 percent since 1928.
- 29 June, New York:
 Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, one of the kings of early silent comedy, has died penniless and forgotten. His career foundered in 1921 after he was tried for the manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe, who died after being taken ill at a debauched party thrown by Arbuckle in a San Francisco hotel. It was alleged that Arbuckle had tried to rape her. After three trials, Arbuckle was acquitted, but the resulting storm turned up even more skeletons. Four years earlier, Arbuckle and a number of top movie executives had been involved in another scandalous party that had been hushed up thanks to some generous bribes. The studio bosses' own hypocrisy had been revealed and this could not be forgiven. So Arbuckle was tossed to the wolves. Ditched by Paramount, with whom he had recently signed a lucrative contract, and no longer able to appear in front of the camera, Arbuckle took to directing under the ironic pseudonym William B. Goodrich. Seeking to make a vaudeville comeback in Paris, he was cruelly heckled, and ended his career directing two-reelers. Sadly, the Fat Man just wasn't funny anymore.
- 31 July, Los Angeles: In accordance with the directives of the National Recovery Act, the MPPDA has instituted the 40-hour week for employees in the movie industry, a measure designed to create more jobs.
- 8 August, Los Angeles: Professionals in the movie industry have launched a series of debates and consultations to decide on the enforcement of the Motion Picture Code, in accordance with the provisions of the NRA.
- 17 August, London:
 Producer Alexander Korda has personally directed his most recent film, The Private Life of Henry VIII. In addition to starring Charles Laughton, whose performance in the title role is a tour de force, the remarkable cast includes Elsa Lanchester, Robert Donat, Merle Oberon and Binnie Barnes. Very well-made, with memorable contributions from the scriptwriter Arthur Wimperis and cameraman Georges Périnal, the film's success suggests that it will help put Britain back on the world cinema stage. Indeed, the first incidation of this is that United Artists has added Korda and his company London Films to its roster of production companies.
- 1 September, London: The British Film Institute, which has just been established, will serve "to encourage the development of the art of the film" and "to testify to life and its mores." In other words, the BFI hopes to conserve and disseminate cinematographic culture. The necessity for such an institute was underlined last year by the British Institute for Adult Education in its report "The Film in National Life." The first president is the Duke of Sutherland, while noted novelist John Buchan has been nominated president of the advisory board. The BFI will draw its funds from government sources and members' subscriptions. The new institute has also announced that they will soon edit and publish a magazine of articles and reviews called The Monthly Film Bulletin.
- 9 September, New York: Release of Frank Capra's Lady for a Day, with Warren William and May Robson.
- 15 September, London:
 Due to an acute budgetary crisis, the British government has been forced to discontinue its funding of the Empire Marketing Board -- the organization that has served as the main center of documentary filmmaking in England during the past four years. Fortunately, the entire unit, originally formed and headed by John Grierson, has been able to find a hew home and new government sponsor in the GPO (General Post Office), and will be referred to from now on as the GPO Film Unit. It is hoped that this group will be able to continue its film work undiminished during the coming years. As the single most important figure connected with the British documentary movement, Grierson has been involved in a wide range of activities in recent years. The 50-minute long Drifters, made in 1929 and his first outing as producer, director and scriptwriter, was a true landmark in documentary production. Although strongly influenced by American filmmaker Robert Flaherty, this particular film also demonstrated the use of a Soviet style of editing, while reflecting Grierson's personal commitment to social themes. At the EMB, Grierson succeeded in assembling, and helping to train, a group of filmmakers who have since then emerged as the mainstay of the British documentary, with Grierson producing most of their films. This notable group of directors includes Basil Wright, Arthur Elton, Stuart Legg, Edgar Anstey, Harry Watt and Paul Rotha. Grierson has put a lot of effort into getting their work widely shown, not only in commercial cinemas but also to audiences at schools, clubs and film societies, even setting up a free film-loan library at the EMB and organizing his own free screenings.
- 22 September, Berlin:
 On 30 January last, with the arrival of the Third Reich, Germany was turned into a totalitarian state. And now the movie industry has been put under the control of the Nazis. On 14 July, new legislation unequivocally proclaimed that "The National Socialist Party of German Workers constitutes the only political party in Germany," with the threat of arrest, prison and other forms of punishment for those who do not comply. With Josef Goebbels as Minister of Information and Propaganda since March, the Nazification of institutions has continued unabated. The promulgation of 6 June already excluded Jews and foreigners from the cinematographic industry. To practice a profession, German citizenship has to be proven and so must Aryan origin. At the head of this Ministry is Dr. Goebbels, age 36, who has become "the agent of the Führer and chancellor for everything that is concerned with the cultural and artistic life of Germany." In his opinion, the crisis prevailing in the country has been intellectual as well as material and economic. "This will continue until we have the courage to reform the German cinema right to its roots." Equally, since June, with the creation of the Filmkreditbank, the financing of productions has been placed under strict control of the State. Most recently the Third Reich has instituted the National Chamber of Culture that is presided over by Goebbels himself. It has many goals: "The promotion of German culture in the spirit of the people and of the Reich, to settle economic and social affairs of the cultural sector, and to balance the efforts of groups it controls." In it there are seven departments dependent on the National Chamber, which share all the spheres of intellectual and artistic life. Thus, the Chamber of the Cinema of the Riech has set out all aspects of the profession -- administrative, commercial, distributive and ideological. It can truly be said that Nazi cinema has been born.
- 2 October, Sofia: The Modern Theatre is screening the first Bulgarian sound film, The Slaves' Revolt, by Vassili Guendov. The film evokes the struggle for national freedom in the 19th century.
- 4 October, Hollywood: 20th Century, the new company owned by Darryl F. Zanuck and Joseph M. Schenck has released its first film, The Bowery, directed by Raoul Walsh, with Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper and George Raft.
- 6 October, Paris: Mae West's huge American success, I'm No Angel, is now captivating France. Mae, adorning the French poster in a glitzy Schiaparelli gown, plays outrageous carnival entertainer Sister Honky Tonk, again opposite handsome Cary Grant.
- 9 October, London:
 Hollywood, in the form of the Fox studio, has produced a stylish adaptation of Cavalcade, the play by Noël Coward that has been a huge success in the West End. Fox has filmed the stage production quite faithfully, reproducing as accurately as possible the story of one British family (and their servants) from the Boer War to the present, taking in along the way the sinking of the Titanic, the Great War and the Jazz Age. The director is Frank Lloyd, a Scot resident in American since 1913 and in films from the following year. The all-British cast is headed up by Clive Brook, suave epitome of the English gentleman, and also Diana Wynyard, whose graceful performance Coward has found "entirely entrancing... To her I am immensely grateful... I again repeat, I find her performance magnificent." His own involvement with films began in England in 1917, when he played two bit parts in D. W. Griffith's Hearts of the World. Fox have poured a small fortune into his Cavalcade, written off by cynics as a certain flop since it hadn't even been produced on Broadway. But the doubters have been proved wrong, as this handsomely mounted production is doing brisk business at the box office. Underneath the glossy surface there is a pointed criticism of the waste of war and a poignant picture of the privileged world to which it brought an end.
- 13 October, Prague: Actor and director Josef Rovensky has released his second fiim, Rekka, a story of adolescent love.
- 31 October, Hollywood: On signing his contract with MGM, Joseph Yule Jr. has become Mickey Rooney.
- 7 November, Hollywood:
 Duck Soup, the latest from the Marx Brothers, casts Groucho as the egregious Rufus T. Firefly, president of the banana republic of Freedonia, whose decision to declare war on neighboring Sylvania (just for the hell of it) allows Harpo and Chico to go into the espionage business. The scatterbrained script penned by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheckman, lobs a barrage of satirical grenades at war, politics and patriotism, and the stately figure of Margaret Dumont, once again surviving an avalanche of indignities with her dignity intact. Leo McCarey, who cut his comic teeth with Laurel and Hardy, handles the accumulating anarchy with great skill, particularly in the crazy war sequences. At the end of the filming, Zeppo announced that he was retiring from the movies.
- 8 November, Paris: Release of Louis Jouvet's new film Dr. Knock, a screen version of Jules Romain's satirical play, with Jouvet himself as Dr. Knock.
- 11 November, New York: Release of Little Women, the film version of Louisa May Alcott's popular novel about the March family. George Cukor directed with the role of Jo played by Katharine Hepburn.
- 12 November, Shanghai: As if the Japanese bombings and political disorder were not enough, a commando from the Blue Shirts, a fascist group, has sacked the Yi-Hua studios, which were founded by the film director Tian-Han.
- 15 November, Paris: Jean Vigo has filmed the first scenes for L'Atlante, with Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté and Michel Simon, at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine for producers Nounez-Gaumont.
- 17 November, Moscow: Release of Velikii uteshitel (The Great Consoler), by Lev Kuleshov, adapted from the novel by O'Henry.
- 23 November, Paris: Jean Gabin has married Jeanne Mauchain, a dancer at the Paris Casino and the Apollo under the name of Doriane.
- 27 November, Hollywood:
 When Samuel Goldwyn brought Broadway choreographer Busby Berkeley to Hollywood to do the numbers for the Eddie Cantor musical Whoopee! three years ago, few could have imagined how much he would change the concept of the Goldwyn and Warner Bros. musicals with his inventive and spectacular dance routines. His last film on his Goldwyn contract and his fourth with Cantor, Roman Scandals, has just opened. The movie contains a couple of Berkeley numbers to make anyone's eyes goggle. The setting of "No More Love" is a slave market in which nude girls, wearing long blonde wigs that reach almost down to their knees, are chained to pedestals. Beautiful, smiling chorus girls are also arrayed in a Roman bathhouse where Cantor exhorts them to "Stay Young and Beautiful." However, at Warner Bros., Berkeley has displayed far more than just girls. Recently in 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933, audiences gasped at his kaleidoscopic effects with high overhead shots. Now, in his latest film, Footlight Parade, he even tells a story in song and dance. A sailor (James Cagney) is searching the local bars for Shanghai Lil (Ruby Keeler). They meet in a dive, and after tap dancing on top of the bar, he leaves her to rejoin his ship, but she dons a sailor suit and goes along with him. The sailors go through a complicated military-drill routine, eventually holding up the huge cards that make up the Stars and Stripes. Berkeley's choreographic genius is also in evidence in "By a Waterfall," sung by Dick Powell to a group of water nymphs.
- 31 November, Hollywood: Charles Chaplin has started work on the scenario for Modern Times. While on board the yacht belonging to the present of 20th Century, Joseph M. Schenck, he met the actress Paulette Goddard and decided to sign her up for the film.
- November, New York, : A committee of archbishops, presided over by the papal legate Amleto Cicognani, has founded the National Legion of Decency, with the aim of stopping all forms of "incitement to moral depravity."
 - 13 December, Berlin:
 Hans Westmar has revealed the new face of German cinema, exactly as did Hitlerjunge Quex, released on 19 September. The films' directors, Hans Steinhoff and Franz Wenzler, have propagated Nazi ideology by inflaming youth with a vision of a better life and political responsibility. The Third Reich is very demanding, and films must be irreproachable. Thus a film by Franz Wenzler, Horst Wessel, was seen once and promptly banned. According to the official communiqué, the film did not do sufficient justice to the national movement; the real Horst Wessel was more of a hooligan than a hero. The director reworked the film, and Horst became Hans Westmar, an ideal martyr. Although the film does not lack lyricism, the leading character remains lifeless. That is not the case with Heïne Völker in Hitlerjunge Quex. Steinhoff has preserved his youthful freshness, right to his nickname, Quex, which means quicksilver. He also becomes a hero and martyr when he is fatally stabbed by Communists while distributing election leaflets in Berlin. Franz Seitz, who directed SA-Mann Brand, also praises Hitler Youth. However, none of these films are the "Nazi The Battleship Potemkin" that Josef Goebbels had wished for.
- 15 December, Paris: Director Fritz Lang is now shooting Liliom for Fox-Europa, a company run by the former production chief for UFA, Erich Pommer, who has also left Germany.
- 22 December, Hollywood: Dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are parners in Flying Down to Rio, directed by Thornton Freeland for RKO.
- 31 December, Berlin:
 The Third Reich has moved rapidly to "purify" Germany's artistic life. In May, 20,000 books, foreign or otherwise, were publicly burnt. All the writings were judged by Josef Goebbels to be poisonous to the German mind and had to disappear. Many professionals working in the film industry, opposed to the regime or terrorized by it, have chosen to leave. Some did not wait for the arrival of Hitler. Fritz Lang hastily fled the "honors" that would be bestowed upon him, leaving behind his wife and co-screenwriter Thea von Harbou, who was sympathetic to the aims of the Third Reich. He chose exile in France, where he was reunited with the producer Erich Pommer, who had been frightened out of Germany despite his glorious career at UFA. Leontine Sagan, director of Mädschen in Uniform, emigrated to the United Kingdom at the time of the initial persecutions in 1932. Max Ophüls spent no time basking in the success of Liebelei. He went to Paris after the Reichstag fire. No category of artist, especially those who are Jewish, has been able to escape the shadow of triumphant Nazism: scenarists and cameramen (Karl Freund, Carl Mayer, Eugen Schüfftan, Billy Wilder), performers (Elisabeth Bergner, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt) or directors (Henry Koster, Robert Siodmak, Paul Czinner, Robert Wiene and Ewald-André Dupont). On New Year's Eve, Berlin can claim to be rid of its creative minds. To the great satisfaction of Germany's new masters, the country is now free of its "most subversive" elements.
- 31 December, Palestine: British censors have banned the first full-length Yiddish sound film called Sabra, made in Palestine by young Polish director Aleksander Ford. They consider it a "left-wing and anti-Arab" work of propaganda.
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12 February - Loutra-Iraias, Greece, Costa-Gavras (Konstantinos Gavras)