I was on a roll and had the museum two-day pass in Frankfurt. I decided to give this museum a try, although I am not very educated about films and how they are made. Just by chance, the museum had an exhibit on Weimar films and changing views of gender in that period. This was a great exhibit!
The Weimar period (1918-1933) was a period of experimentation and trying new things in Germany. This era really deserves more study, but unfortunately it is frequently overlooked, because everyone focuses on the Nazi era. (See also the Babylon Berlin series on Netflix.)
The exhibit had wonderful explanations (in Egl too) on such films as "Girls in Uniform," "Different from the others," "I don't want to be a man" and other titles. The original "Viktor Viktoria"--later re-made with Julie Andrews and made into a Broadway show too, was also from this period (1933). In fact, from the clips, the 1933 version looks like it was so much better.
One of the major German actors of this period, Conrad Veidt (1893-1943) is known to North Americans as Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942), but he made many famous films in the Weimar era, before leaving Germany in 1933.
Marlene Dietrich's dressing up in the tails and top hat in "the Blue Angel" (1933), was actually pioneered in several other pictures in shows, another gender-bending exercise. By the time MD did it, it was merely naughty/cute.
Thanks for the fine exhibit.