Das häßliche Mädchen

Das häßliche Mädchen ("The Ugly Girl", sometimes translated "The Ugly Duckling") is a German comedy film made in early 1933, during the transition from the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany, and premièred in September that year. It was the first or second film directed by Hermann Kosterlitz, who left Germany before the film was completed and later worked in the United States under the name Henry Koster, and the last German film in which Dolly Haas appeared; she also later emigrated to the US. A riot broke out at the première to protest the male lead, Max Hansen, who was supposedly "too Jewish." The film's representation of the "ugly girl" as outsider has been described as a metaphorical way to explore the outsider existence of Jews.

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, the Nazis had begun to define and institute their official policies of anti-Semitism in relation to the cinema. In March, the Propaganda Ministry had been created and Goebbels had declared that German cinema must become a völkisch art form. In June, the Film Credit Bank had been founded to control the staffing of films through their funding and the Aryan clause had forbidden non-Germans and non-"Aryans", with few exceptions, from participating in the production or distribution of German films. In mid-July, the Reich Film Chamber had been formed, with membership required for continued employment in cinema.

Hermann Kosterlitz both directed and co-wrote the script. This was his first or second time directing. Kosterlitz, who was Jewish, had left Germany months before the premiere, without seeing the final cut. His name was removed from the credits and replaced by an "Aryan" pseudonym, "Hasse Preis". He went to Paris in April, then via Budapest and Vienna to Hollywood in 1936. (The other author, Felix Joachimson, would go first to Austria and then also to the US, where he was a successful scriptwriter and producer under the name of Felix Jackson.)