Also in June 1933
4th: Boasting Europe’s most powerful transmitter, Radio Luxembourg launches its English language service. This does not go down well with the BBC, which has so far enjoyed a monopoly in the UK, and complaints are soon raised that Radio Luxembourg is pirating frequencies.
6th: The first drive-in movie theatre opens in Pennsauken, New Jersey, US. It is the brainchild of Richard Hollingshead, who charges 25 cents per car and 25 cents per person. The first ever film shown at the Camden Drive-in is Wives Beware, a British comedy directed by Fred Niblo and starring Adolphe Menjou and Margaret Bannerman. 7th: Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s Seven Deadly Sins receives its world premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-élysées in Paris, with a cast including Lotte Lenya and Tilly Losch. As it is performed in Weill and Brecht’s own language, their riotous ‘sung ballet’ leaves much of its audience perplexed, though German speakers give it the thumbs up. 22nd: Joseph Canteloube’s Vercingétorix is performed for the first time at the Paris Opera, with the star tenor Georges Thill in the title role. The opera, which tells the story of the chief of the Arverni tribe who led the Gauls in an unsuccessful revolution against Julius Caesar, does not prove a great success and the production is brought to an end after just nine performances.
29th: The US actor, director and screenwriter Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle dies of a heart attack at the age of 46 in New York. Famous for silent films such as Coney Island, Good Night, Nurse! and The Butcher Boy, he was also an important mentor to actors including Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. In 1921, Arbuckle was tried three times for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe, and though he was acquitted, the allegations overshadowed his later career.