Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1934

The Contenders:

The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Cleopatra
Flirtation Walk
The Gay Divorcee
Here Comes the Navy
The House of Rothschild
Imitation of Life
It Happened One Night (winner)
One Night of Love
The Thin Man
Viva Villa!
The White Parade

Watching Oscar: The House of Rothschild

Film: The House of Rothschild
Format: Internet video on laptop.

As this blog testifies, I watch a shit-ton of movies. I don’t review everything I watch, but I do review many of them. I average somewhere between six and ten films per week most weeks, and if I am not between those numbers, I’m usually on the high side. In the hundreds of films I watch every year, I see a lot of everything. I see the traditional stuff, I see monster films, I see experimental works that are as opaque to their meaning as a lead shield is to light. But it’s been some time since I’ve seen a film that so purely flummoxed me as to its intent as The House of Rothschild.

Seriously, I don’t know what the takeaway from this film is supposed to be. It plays, at least after the opening sequence, like a propaganda film for one of the wealthiest families in the world. But it also plays like a history of the Napoleonic times and the state of the Jewish people in Europe. But there’s also a romance shoehorned in here (of course), so there are aspects of that as well. And there’s some war going on throughout the film. And racism. With all of that, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be thinking by the end except that the Rothschild family took some risks that paid off, which has led to them being absolutely rolling in coin.