History Film / TheHouseOfRothschild

A most unusual film for its era, directly addressing antisemitism in a manner that Hollywood otherwise simply never did: the Rothschilds live in a ghetto, they are persecuted and oppressed, and Meyer talks about how Jews are forced to work as merchants and moneylenders because Christian Europe won't let them own land or work a trade. American cinema wouldn't take the subject of antisemitism up so directly again until ''Film/GentlemansAgreement'' and ''Film/{{Crossfire}}'', both from 1947. UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, meanwhile, made an [[SpiritualAntithesis antisemitic movie]] in 1940, ''Die Rothschilds''. The Nazis would also wholesale steal clips from the film to use in their infamous propaganda piece, ''Der ewige Jude''/''The Eternal Jew'' from the same year.

A most unusual film for its era, directly addressing antisemitism in a manner that Hollywood otherwise simply never did: the Rothschilds live in a ghetto, they are persecuted and oppressed, and Meyer talks about how Jews are forced to work as merchants and moneylenders because Christian Europe won't let them own land or work a trade. American cinema wouldn't take the subject of antisemitism up so directly again until ''Film/GentlemansAgreement'' and ''Film/{{Crossfire}}'', both from 1947. UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, meanwhile, made an [[SpiritualAntithesis antisemitic movie]] in 1940, ''Die Rothschilds''.

A most unusual film for its era, directly addressing antisemitism in a manner that Hollywood otherwise simply never did: the Rothschilds live in a ghetto, they are persecuted and oppressed, and Meyer talks about how Jews are forced to work as merchants and moneylenders because Christian Europe won't let them own land or work a trade. American cinema wouldn't take the subject of antisemitism up so directly again until ''Film/GentlemansAgreement'' in 1947. UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, meanwhile, made an [[SpiritualAntithesis antisemitic movie]] in 1940, ''Die Rothschilds''.

A most unusual film for its era, directly addressing antisemitism in a manner that Hollywood otherwise simply never did: the Rothschilds live in a ghetto, they are persecuted and oppressed, and Meyer talks about how Jews are forced to work as merchants and moneylenders because Christian Europe won't let them own land or work a trade. American cinema wouldn't take the subject of antisemitism up so directly again until ''Film/GentlemansAgreement'' in 1947.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: The Rothschilds in the film, believe supporting the fight against Napoleon will contribute to amelioration of Jews. In actual fact, it was Napoleon who was most responsible for Jewish emancipation, and was indeed a heroic figure for many 19th Century European Jews from Heinrich Heine to UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud, and the film's allegory of making Napoleon a proto-Hitler as in a looming European dictator is entirely off-base (the fact that it was the British who broke the treaty with Napoleonic France and declared war first is naturally unaddressed).

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Possibly the first example of this trope. It isn't random that Count Ledrantz, the most antisemitic character in the film, is a German. And just to make it more obvious, Ledrantz stirs up a pogrom in Frankfurt, with Germans throwing rocks through the windows of Jewish businesses.

* TitleDrop: The Duke of Wellington gives a celebratory toast for the house of Rothschild.

* SplitScreen: Used for each of the other four Rothschild brothers as they receive word of the mammoth French loan.

It is a fictionalized re-telling of the rise of the Rothschilds, who pioneered international banking in Europe. The film opens in 1780 as family patriarch Meyer Rothschild (George Arliss) has established a prosperous trading business, but is still forced to live in a ghetto in Frankfurt, where he has to bribe anti-Semitic tax collectors. He manages to pay off the tax man but suffers a dreadful reversal when ten thousand gulden is stolen by bandits before he can receive it. A bitter Meyer tells his five sons to establish banking houses throughout Europe, to reduce the need for risky cash transfers, and also to enrich themselves as much as possible, because Jews need money to protect themselves in an anti-Semitic Europe.

A most unusual film for its era.

It is a fictionalized re-telling of the rise of the Rothschilds, who pioneered international banking in Europe. The film opens in 1780 as family patriarch Meyer Rothschild (George Arliss) has established a prosperous trading business, but is still forced to live in a ghetto in Frankfurt, where he has to bribe anti-Semitic tax collectors. He manages to pay off the tax man but suffers a dreadful reversal when ten thousand gulden is stolen by bandits before he can receive it. A bitter Meyer tells his five sons to establish banking houses throughout Europe, to reduce the need for risky cash transfers, and also to enrich themselves as much as possible, because Jews need money to protect themselves in an anti-Semitic Europe.