User Reviews

(Slight Spoilers) Lavish historical epic of the Rothschild family's rise from the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt in Prussia to become the most powerful banking institution in Europe. Thoward the end of the movie "House of Rothschild" things weren't at all looking good for the family of banking brothers with all of them, and their banks securities, buying up British bonds on the London Stock Exchange for cut-rate prices with rumors going around that the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium was lost to Napoleon's forces. It was the old stock market saying that "information is the most valuable commodity" that rescued the Rothschild's vast money holdings. That commodity in the end not only saved the Rothschild fortune, and more then doubled it, but also saved those investors who were wise enough to follow Nathans lead in not abandoning the allies financially at their most critical time of need when everything looked as if it were lost.

The film mostly concentrates on how the Rothschilds, namely Nathan and his brothers, despite the anti-Jewish prejudices that they faced in early 19th Century Europe prevailed in the end to overcome the slings and arrows as well as the anti-Semitic riots incited by the likes of Prussian Count Ledrantz, Boris Karloff, to become the richest and most powerful bankers in the world.

Besides the historical facts in the movie there's also a fictitious sub-plot involving Nathan's daughter Julie, Loretta Young, having a love affair with the handsome and dashing British calvary officer Captain Frizroy, Robert Young,that her father had a hard time accepting Since Fitzroy wasn't Jewish or a Rothschild. But in the end everything was ironed out, by the script writers, to make the affair between the two lovebirds a joyous and successful one.

Nathan who was earlier sandbagged by Count Ledrantz and his fellow bankers when a loan that he expected his bank to float involving the restoration of France, after Napoleon's exile on the Island of Elba, was rejected. This came about because of what Ledrantz smugly called a "technicallity"! The unforgivable "technicallity" being that Nathan was Jewish! This sleazy and despicable act on the part of Ledrantz & Co. had an outrage and indignant Nathan get back at Ledrantz and his gang of banker cut-throats.

Nathan thus, using financial guerrilla-like tactics, undercut the bonds that they were to float and sell to the British public representing the French loan. In the end this forced Ledrantz & Co. to come to the Rothschild Bank hat in hand begging for Nathan to become a partner. Even if Nathans partnership cost these rascals and unscrupulous financial manipulators as much as 50 million British pounds for them to do it.

Smarting from the beating his and his cohorts took at the hands of the witty and clever Nathan sore loser Ledrantz started to foment anti-Jewish riots all over his native Prussia, which included the Rothschild family home "The Red Shield" in the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt. This was Ledrantz way to get back at Nathan but that quickly came to an end with the startling news of Napoleon escaping from his exile in Elba and regaining power in France. This meant that they, Ledrantz & Co, would need the Rothschild money again to finally stop Napoleons determined attempt to conquer all of Europe. Like the bankers did before in needing the Rothschild's banks money to defeat Napoleon after his massive June 21,1812 eastern invasion that lead to his disastrous withdrawal from Czarist Russia back in the winter 1812-1813.

With news hard to come by back then it was Nathan's ingenious and secret way of using carrier pigeons from the battlefield that gave him the edge in knowing that the Duke of Wellingtons, C. Aubrey Smith, forces checked and repulsed Napoleon's big offensive at the battle of Waterloo! That happened as rumors were abound on the floor of the London Stock Exchang that just the opposite happened. This timely information had Nathan and his brothers buy up all the British Government Securities that were being sold off and bid down by panicked stock brokers and investors. In the end Nathan not only saved the London Exchange from total collapse but made himself and the Rothschild Bank, or banks, the financial powerhouse that it became and is, after some 200 years later, even now.

George Ariss plays both the elder Mayer and his son Nathan Rothschild in the movie with both Robert and Loretta, no relations, Young as the star-struck lovers Fitzroy and Julie in small but very important supporting roles in the film.

This would never have made it past the producers, the Breen Office, or the German representatives in Hollywood a year or two later. It opens with what appears to be an outlandish parody of Jewish life in 1780s Prussia. The father (Arliss) is a money lender or pawn broker or something, overacting to beat the band. He and his family run around their humble household when they see the tax collector coming. Arliss wrings his hands and in a quivering voice orders the rest to hide the silverware and the roast, and to break out the second set of books. The sneering tax collector is amenable to a bribe, and when he leaves, the family cackled over how they outwitted him and saved money on the deal. It sets the stereotype in cement -- greedy, money-mongering, clannish cheaters.

It develops that there were reasons enough for the family's worry. The Jews of Frankfort all live in "Jew Street" and are taxed at a far higher rate than the mayor himself. The government is corrupt and openly anti-Semitic. But all that has little impact on the unwittingly comic scene of the poor Rothschild's noisily dashing about and trying to hoodwink the tax collector. The old man dies at the end, advising his sons to go out into the world and establish a vast banking empire because "money is the only power we have." The four or five sons follow his orders and we skip to the Napoleonic period an focus on Nathan Rothschild (Arliss, again). The family is fabulously rich and it becomes even more so by betting against Napoleon in both wars. Despite the anti-Semitic feelings among the Allied leaders, Nathan bets everything he has and manages to save all of Europe from extinction.

They've done what they could with the story but banking is essentially a boring business, I guess. I certainly have no interest in it and there were some arguments about points being up or down that left me in the dust. There is a sub-theme done with quiet subtlety. Nathan's daughter, Loretta Young, wants to marry a Captain of the Guards, Robert Young, a Gentile. And Nathan is faced with the same problem as Tevyev in "Fiddler on the Roof," the best line of which came from a young Russian who asks one of Tevyev's daughters, "Do you feel about me the way that they feel about you?" When Benny develops a warm feeling for a shiksa in "The Benny Goodman Story", Goodman's mother phrases the issue in terms of social class: "Bagels and caviar don't mix." The underlying questions have to do with the group loyalty of minority groups who have been victimized and the social borders they themselves create, but that's another story.

There has always been intolerance, here and in Europe. Minorities are often discriminated against. But my understanding is that the Jews of Germany and elsewhere, like the Rothschilds were doing a pretty good job of being assimilated -- poets, doctors, bankers, scientists -- until the changing times brought disaster. By contrast, the Jews of Eastern Europe held niche occupations in smaller cities and towns. My immigrant German grandfather lived in one of those villages and I once asked him about the Jews when he was growing up. Of course there were Jews. They were money lenders. Why were the Jews the money lenders? "They ver dzha only pipple in dzha village you could trust." He was entirely serious.

Didn't the Rothschilds make fine wine too? I'd like to learn more about that. Wine is more interesting than banking.

I think it's a very ironic thing that the most overtly positive and obvious portrayal of Jews comes from Twentieth Century Fox--the only major American studio that was NOT controlled by an ethnic Jewish man at the time! So, as folks like Louis B. Mayer and Jack Warner chose to de-emphasize their Jewish roots and make films which almost never even mentioned Judaism, Daryl Zanuck dove head first into the topic and brought us this very unusual biopic.

The story is about the Rothschild family and only concerns a snippet in the history of the family--from the 18th century through the fall of Napoleon. When it begins, the family patriarch (George Arliss) instructs his sons to divide up the banking business among five major European capitals. Then, following his death, the story jumps decades later and the new head of the banking family is ALSO played by Arliss--albeit without the wig and makeup he donned at the beginning of the film. The theme is how honorable the family was and how they stood behind freedom and right...and that mistreatment of them and other Jews is just morally repugnant. Interestingly, the biggest anti-Semite of this portion of the film is a German guy (Boris Karloff)...and was perhaps the studio's way to address the rising tide of Naziism at the time.

Regardless of its intent, the film is a well acted and interesting costume drama. How close this all actually is to the real life Rothschilds, I have no idea but it was entertaining. Plus, I'd watch Arliss in just about anything!

HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD concentrates on anti-Semitism, and the struggle of the Jews to get equality and recognition from their Gentile neighbors. It's presentation of the problem is simplistic, but given the time that this film was produced it was amazing that any attempt was made to attack anti-Semitism at all. In 1934 Adolph Hitler was Chancellor of Germany one year already. Strong anti-Semitic strains were felt all over Europe and the U.S. - in fact in most of the world. It took some courage to make any jab at it, and producer Darryl Zanuck (a non-Jewish Hollywood film studio head - a rarity) had plenty of that. He would repeat this in fourteen years producing GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT.

George Arliss first plays the head of the famous banking family, Mayer Amschel Rothschild. A stereotypical Jewish money lender, he dies of a stroke after confronting the bullying, greedy tax men. Before he dies he tells his five sons two things:

1) The gentiles have prevented the Jews from competing in the regular professions leaving them in the role of money lenders. But the gentiles have thus put money into the hands of the Jews as an only weapon. So it should be used to force the gentiles to emancipate the Jews from their awful ghettos.

2) The boys should establish an international bank in London, Paris, Vienna, Frankfort, and Naples. They would be in a good position to build a mighty economic weapon to use against the Jews' foes, so that (as Mayer says) the Jews can live with dignity.

For most of the picture Arliss plays Nathan Rothschild, who is lucky enough to be set up in London. The five branch bank soon is one of the great financial institutions of the world. Nathan has managed to support the British Government and it's allies in the wars against Napoleon. But after Napoleon is sent to Elba the British and their allies (led by the German, Count Ledranz) are freezing the Rothschilds out of a major bond issue. Nathan realizes that this is due to the anti-Semitic Ledranz, and uses his position at the stock exchange to bear down on the bond issue, threatening to ruin the men who are pushing the issue. Hastily calling a meeting, Lord Baring (Arthur Byron) prevails on the aristocrats to let Rothschild in for a share of the bond issue. Ledranz does it with ill-feeling, warning Nathan that this is not the end of the matter.

Shortly afterward there are pogroms all over central Europe. As Ledranz (Boris Karloff, in a splendidly evil performance without) puts it,"The House of Rothschild - The House with the Red Shield: I'll make it RED!"

There is little Nathan can do about this. But shortly afterward Napoleon escapes from Elba, throwing the alliance (especially Ledranz) off balance. They need Nathan to stabilize the stock exchange, or the Little Corsican will win an easy victory against them. And (although they don't know this) Napoleon has already reached out to Nathan with a counter-proposition: help him and Jewish Emancipation is assured.

That Nathan throws his support to the alliance is no real surprise. He feels that if he supports Napoleon the image of the Jews suffers with the bulk of the Gentiles - they traffic in human lives and blood. But he does save the stock exchange, and he ends having proved that the Jews can be as good citizens as their Gentile counterparts.

How true is the story? Well I recommend Frederic Morton's classic book THE ROTHSCHILDS to get the accurate story. Mayer Rothschild was the financial agent of the Prince of Hesse-Cassel. The money made from the renting of Hessian troops was shepherded by Mayer into a vast fortune, and he got a commission. It staked out (and trained) his five sons, who did make their private bank the biggest in the world.

The French Revolution had announced that the Jews were equals of the Gentiles (the bill ending French legal discrimination against the Jews was presented by Maximillian Robespierre!). Napoleon reestablished it, and (in 1807) called the first meeting of the Jewish Sanhedrin since 70 A.D. Whether he did this for publicity or he meant it is still debated. The spread of the reform by the Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies achieved was hurt by the reaction in Europe after Napoleon's final defeat in 1815.

Ledranz is a splendid villain (and a German one, for all that). But he appears to be based on Prince Claus Von Metternich, the Chancellor of the Austrian Empire. In fact, although he probably had some social anti-Semitism, Von Metternich was quite friendly to the Rothschilds, and he figured out a way of allowing them to be ennobled in Austria and in the German states.

The film does seem a little simplistic. There is no reference to the blood libel as such, or to the blame Christianity placed on the Jews for the death of Jesus. And to make a case that economic muscle alone would change people's minds was silly and short sighted. It could equally awaken jealousy and hatred for a successful people. But that it was advanced at all in 1934, and that the film was an attempt to confront a hideous, growing problem, was deserving of praise. Ironically it was too little, too late. Goebbels would produce an anti-Semitic film called THE ROTHSCHILDS during World War II, and his pet director Veidt Hartmann would direct THE ETERNAL JEW (where Jews were compared to rats, and scenes from HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD appear to have been cut in). Hartmann would also direct JUD SUSS, regarding another Jewish financier of an earlier period, who was hung for "crimes" - of course, Hartmann insisted he Jud Suss Oppenheimer was guilty of those crimes. So, for all the good intentions of Zanuck and Arliss and the others, history had a dreadful commentary awaiting in the wings.