Das häßliche Mädchen was filmed at the Avanti Tonfilm studios in Grunewald, Berlin in January–February 1933, the first months of Hitler's term as Reich Chancellor.
Between filming and the 8 September première at the Atrium-Theater,[1] the Nazis had begun to define and institute their official policies of anti-Semitism targeting the cinema industry.
The male lead, Max Hansen, was reputed to be part-Jewish and the previous year had performed a comic song implying that Hitler was homosexual; at the opening, in a riot orchestrated by the Nazis, members of the audience attacked him as "too Jewish", shouting "We want German movies!
Dolly Haas was an exclusively comedic actress with an androgynous persona[12] well suited to a film about appearance and the performance of identity; there were rumours about her racial heritage, too, but they were squashed with statements that she came "from a good Aryan family".
[16][17][18] The film did receive praise for its humour, and reviews included phrases such as "pleasant", "amusing" and "full of delightful ideas".
[11] Lotte März (Dolly Haas) is hired as a secretary at an insurance company because she is ugly; introducing her to the (male) accountants, the personnel manager says, "I hope that you will finally be able to work in peace."
The men harass her and conspire to lure her into a compromising position by having one of them, Fritz Mahldorf (Max Hansen) pretend to find her attractive.
The self-absorbed Fritz, showing remorse that is unusual for him, arranges for her to be rehired as assistant to Director Mönckeberg (Otto Wallburg, a comical figure[21]).
[23] The film has been seen as a treatment of the exclusion of Jews through the metaphor of the familiar trope of sexism and the need for women to self-present as acceptably feminine.
[25] Hansen, the presumed Jew with characteristically "Jewish" features, playing Fritz, the tormentor with the stereotypically German name, and Haas, the blonde and childish-looking Lotte being excoriated as "ugly" (i.e. Jewish) effect a displacement of the problem of otherness to enact a narrative of accommodation making use of the traditional romantic comedy plot of the girl getting a makeover to attract the boy.