Cinema: Shorts: Jan. 9, 1939

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In Paris, police arrested Bernard Tanenzapf, former president of Pathe Cinema,-on charges of embezzling at least $3,660,000. Lean, black-mustached, fiftyish, Bernard Tanenzapf, who also called himself Bernard Natan, started his career somewhere in Central Europe. He arrived in Paris about 1920, organized several small but profitable cinema producing companies, bought out Pathe's founder, Charles Pathe, in 1928.

In 1935, Pathe's stockholders accused its president of breaking the French law against forming dummy companies. Following year Pathe was declared bankrupt, whereupon M. Tanenzapf's connection with the company ended. Last spring Paris courts approved prosecution of M. Tanenzapf on a charge of "fraudulent creation of a fictitious majority" in Pathe stock, opened his books to a stockholders' committee, whose pryings uncovered the evidence for last fortnight's arrest.

Among the means whereby Pathe's Tanenzapf had apparently looted his company, which had $7,000,000 worth of assets in 1929, were false theatre leases, fictitious subsidiaries for manufacturing non-existent theatre equipment.

Arrested with Tanenzapf were eight of his associates, including one Alexander George Johannides, who, listed by Pathé as recipient of large payments for "inventions," told police he had never invented anything. Because of the long interval between Pathé's bankruptcy and the disclosure of its president's business technique, and because Pathé's Tanenzapf had often entertained members of the Chamber of Deputies at dinners and previews, the French press promptly scented another Stavisky scandal.

In Hollywood, where—contrary to general belief—night clubs rarely flourish, famed Earl Carroll last week opened the most elaborate cabaret-theatre-restaurant on the West Coast, equipped with almost an acre of floor space, patent-leather ceiling, two concentric revolving stages.

Present at the gala premiere were a quorum of Hollywood actresses, cinema celebrities like Darryl Zanuck, Jack Warner, Cecil B. DeMille, who had paid $1,000 each for "lifetime" cover charges, permission to sit in an "inner circle." Chunks of scenery fell down, the show was an hour late, the revolving stages failed to turn properly, microphones went dead, a disappearing platform jerked the prima donna out of sight during one of her songs, and a waiter dropped a trayful of dishes during a dance spectacle. Hollywood pronounced the opening a success.

In Manhattan, U. S. District Court Judge Vincent L. Leibell ordered Loews Inc. and three subsidiaries to pay Authors Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes $532,153 for plagiarizing their play Dishonored Lady, produced in 1930, in the picture Letty Lynton, produced in 1932.

Extras, according to Hollywood's Central Casting Corp., had a bad year in 1938. Total extra jobs for the year were 256,336 —approximately 40,000 less than last year. Despite a 10% pay raise, extras' total pay was $2,500,000, against $3,000,000 last year.