1POPULAR CINEMA

the German cinema, a sensibility that found foremost expression in the registers
of humor, irony, parody, and farce. After 1933, obligatory cheerfulness
and crude sexual humor took the place of subtle innuendoes and double entendres.
Visual, acoustic, and linguistic wit was abandoned in favor of conventional
dramatic effects, and the provocative play with identities gave way
to highly normative definitions of gender and race.
What are the films in question, and who are the directors? Number One:
Das häßliche Mädchen (The Ugly Girl), the first directorial effort by Hermann
Kosterlitz, who had previously worked as a screenwriter, for Kurt
Bernhardt among others. Shooting took place in January and February in
the Grunewald studio of the Avanti-Tonfilm AG just as Hitler was appointed
chancellor and the Reichstag went up in flames. When the film opened after
much delay on 8 September, in the fashionable Atrium-Theater in
Berlin, the director’s name had been omitted from the credits, and the (allegedly
Jewish) actor Max Hansen became the target of vicious anti-Semitic
attacks, with members of the audience shouting: “We want German movies!
We want German actors!” Nonetheless, many reviewers in the trade press
still praised Kosterlitz for his humorous approach to the problems of everyday
life, and newspaper announcements advertised the film as “pleasant”
and “amusing,” and “full of delightful ideas.” 2 At the time of the premiere,
the director was already living and working in Paris. Having left Germany
in early April, he never even saw the final cut. 3 After assignments as a
screenwriter in Budapest and Vienna, Kosterlitz went to Hollywood in 1936
at the invitation of Carl Laemmle. Working for Universal under the name
Henry Koster, he directed such successes as The Bishop’s Wife (1947) and
Harvey (1950).
Number Two: Viktor und Viktoria (Victor and Victoria), directed by the
prolific actor-director Reinhold Schünzel. Production took place from September
to December at the UFA studios in Neu-Babelsberg. The film opened
to generally positive reviews in the Christmas season on 23 December at the
elegant Gloria-Palast in Berlin. However, there was an undeniable sense of
ambivalence about what some reviewers still praised as quality entertainment
in the tradition established by Erich Pommer and what others already
denounced as fundamentally un-German in its aesthetic sensibilities. Such
accusations were never directed at Schünzel personally, a fact that may be
attributed to widespread uncertainty about the new anti-Semitic measures
and their relevance to individual cases. The review in the Film-Kurier conceded
that “some offerings are not entirely agreeable but they at least show
24 Popular Cinema of the Third Reich