Cinema: Up From Jew Street

(See front cover)

The House of Rothschild (Twentieth Century) begins with old Mayer Amschel Rothschild (George Arliss, in whiskers and skullcap) as a wheedling Frankfort moneybroker. The loss of a few gulden in a messenger robbery sets him yowling like an alley cat. When the tax-collector comes down Jew Street, stingy old Rothschild whisks his money bags into the cellar, gives each of his children a crust to gnaw, pops the roastbeef into a garbage box. and talks the collector into taking a bribe. As shrewd as he is stingy, Mayer Amschel Rothschild...