The House of Rothschild ***½ (1934, George Arliss, Loretta Young, Boris Karloff, Robert Young, C Aubrey Smith) – Classic Movie Review 5638

Director Alfred L Werker’s extravagantly produced 1934 saga tells of the rise of the Jewish banking family in 19th-century France and the Rothschild financial empire, inherited by his five sons, which helps to finance the war against Napoleon. It is based on a unpublished 1932 play by George Hembert Westley, with an effective, literate screenplay by Nunnally Johnson. A passion project for its star George Arliss, the film was Oscar nominated as Best Picture.

Behind its grand historical sweep this is a sensitively played, intimate, yet universal and timeless movie that deals admirably with the problems and horrors of anti-Semitism. It provides challenging and well taken roles for Loretta Young as the young daughter Julie Rothschild, Robert Young as her suitor Captain Fitzroy, C Aubrey Smith as the Duke of Wellington, and Boris Karloff as a smooth-talking anti-Semite villain, Count Ledrantz.

Best of all, though, is forgotten super-star George Arliss, who gives a marvellous performance as banking patriarch Mayer Rothschild, keenly aware of the prejudice he faces, but honoured as an English baron at the film’s lavish, genuinely moving finale. The brief closing scene is shot in three-strip Technicolor.

Also in the cast are Arthur Byron, Helen Westley as Gudula Rothschild, Reginald Owen, Holmes Herbert, Alan Mowbray as Prince Metternich, Florence Arliss as Hannah Rothschild, Paul Harvey, Ivan F Simpson, Noel Madison, Murray Kinnell as James Rothschild, Georges Revanent, Oscar Apfel, Lumsden Hare, Leo McCabe, Gilbert Emery, Charles E Evans, Desmond Roberts, Earl McDonald, Leo Kohlmar, Matthew Betz, Reginald Sheffield, Brandon Hurst, Crauford Kent, C Montague Shaw, George Offerman and Leonard Mudie.

It is made by 20th Century Pictures, released by United Artists, shot in black and white by J Peverell Marley, produced by Darryl F Zanuck, William Goetz and Raymond Griffith, scored by Alfred Newman and designed by Richard Day. It runs 88 minutes.

When Werker was taken ill, Sidney Lanfield filled in as director for a few days.

Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels had it re-edited to take on an anti-Jewish viewpoint.

Arliss got Warner Bros to buy the source play for him but they did not make the film. Warners sold it to Zanuck, who bought it for 20th Century Pictures, the one Hollywood studio not to have a Jewish boss.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5638

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