The German actress Sonja ZIEMANN (1926-2020) could be anything but ugly. After her phenomenal successes in HEIMATFILMEN (local films) as SCHWARZWALDMÄDEL (Black Forest Girl, 1950) and GRÜN IST DIE HEIDE (The Heath is Green, 1951), each of which attracted more than 16 million people to the cinemas, she had become one of the biggest FILMSTERNCHEN (film stars) of the blossoming German-language cinema of the Adenauer era (1949-1963).
In Wolfgang LIEBENEINERs film she plays a young girl who, out of spite, styles herself as an ugly duckling. One day a successful actor (Dieter BORSCHE) takes care of her and gradually transforms the insecure girl into a beautiful swan. A young heir (Karlheinz BÖHM) from a wealthy family promptly becomes aware of the blossoming beauty. And now everything revolves around the ever-important question of who can lead the young woman to the altar...
Annemarie SELINKOs template really does not offer any innovations. But Sonja ZIEMANN is given two absolute audience favorites, Dieter BORSCHE (1909-1982) and Karlheinz BÖHM (1928-2014), so that the harmless joke becomes quite entertaining. BORSCHE had already portrayed highly popular lovers with Maria SCHELL (1926-2005) and Ruth LEUWERIK (1924-2016), and BÖHM was about to launch a global success in German-language films with Romy SCHNEIDER (1938-1982) as Empress SISSI of Austria. Oh yes, and director LIEBENEINER was soon to achieve another fabulous success at the box office in German-speaking countries with the films about the Trapp family, in which Ruth LEUWERIK played the lead role.
