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6.4/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.4/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. The House of Rothschild remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you like old-school, stuffy biopics where people stand around in velvet coats and deliver lines like they are shouting to the back row of a theater, you’ll probably find something to love here. If you prefer your history movies to feel a bit more, well, human, you might find the whole thing a little exhausting. It is not exactly a light watch, and it sure as heck doesn't hide its intentions.
George Arliss is the engine of this whole thing. He plays Nathan Rothschild with this weird, twitchy intelligence that I couldn't stop watching. He carries the movie on his back, honestly. When he’s not on screen, the movie loses a lot of its heat. It’s like the energy just drains out of the frame.
There is this moment where he is dealing with a group of snobby aristocrats, and you can see him physically shrinking back while his brain is clearly doing five million calculations a second. It is a small, quiet bit of acting in a movie that is otherwise obsessed with being big and loud. I kept wanting to zoom in on his eyes. Too bad the camera was too busy showing us another grand hallway.
Boris Karloff is in here too, though I almost forgot he was playing a villain because he is just so... Boris. He shows up looking menacing, but the script doesn't give him much to do besides be the guy you are supposed to hate. It’s a bit one-note. Sometimes I felt like the movie was trying to force me to be angry, which just made me want to tune out.
The anti-Semitism plot is handled with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I know, it’s a 1934 movie, so I shouldn't expect modern nuance. But it still feels a bit like a lecture. There are scenes that drag on way longer than they need to, specifically the ones involving the bankers just sitting at tables talking about gold and war. My mind started wandering to the curtains in the background—which, by the way, are incredibly dusty looking.
I caught myself thinking about The Fall of the House of Usher for a second, just because of the name, but this is a totally different beast. There is no creeping dread here, just a lot of stern men in wigs. It lacks that weird, gothic magic.
The final act tries to be this big, sweeping emotional payoff, but it felt a little rushed to me. Like they ran out of film and just decided to wrap it up in a giant bow. 🙄 It’s not perfect. It’s not even close to perfect. But it has this strange, old-fashioned sincerity that I can't quite bring myself to dislike entirely.
IMDb —
1925
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