(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 gets a good idea on his death bed. He tells his five sons to found banking houses in the five greatest cities in Europe. Nathan Rothschild (George Arliss), third son of Mayer Amschel, is less disreputable than his father but no less clever. Head of the London branch, he arranges to have his brothers in Frankfort, Vienna, Paris and Naples support the Allies against Napoleon. By the time Napoleon goes to Elba Rothschild and the Duke of Wellington (C. Aubrey Smith) are great friends. When Wellington tells him the Allies propose a loan to rehabilitate France, Rothschild bids but fails to get the loan. Baron Ledrantz (Boris Karloff) collaborates with Metternich and Talleyrand to assign the bonds to gentile bankers. Greatly provoked, Nathan Rothschild sells government bonds of his own to depress the market and prevent the offering of any new ones. Thus he compels Ledrantz to assign him the whole loan, sends the market up again.
Amid all this international finance Nathan Rothschild is not too preoccupied with his moneybags to observe a subplot which Producer Darryl Zanuck is hatching under his nose. His pretty daughter Julie (Loretta Young) has become attached to Wellington's aide. Captain Fitzroy (Robert Young). When his treatment in the matter of the loan convinces Nathan Rothschild that even in England Jews have an inferior social status, he forbids their marriage, sends Julie off to visit her grandmother (Helen Westley) in Frankfort. When he arrives there for a visit, there are riots in the Ghetto, instigated by sulky Baron Ledrantz. To save his fellow Jews from further persecution. Nathan Rothschild is almost ready to humble himself by appealing to Ledrantz when word arrives, by his secret method of communication, that Napoleon has landed in France and is mobilizing an army.
This is the signal for Nathan Rothschild's greatest coup. First he extracts from the Allies a promise to give Jews citizenship. Then he agrees to lend them all the Rothschild money. On the morning of Waterloo Rothschild is in a bad way. There is a panic on the London stock exchange. If the market breaks completely. Rothschild will be bankrupt. He pops on to the floor, places in his buttonhole a flower given him by Mrs. Rothschild (Mrs. Arliss) and orders his agents to buy. Presently, there arrives from the battlefield a message that Napoleon has lost. When next seen. Nathan Rothschild is at court with his wife, wondering on which knee to kneel while being knighted. His daughter Julie is engaged to marry Captain Fitzroy and the chains have been removed from Frankfort's Jew Street.