Get out the popcorn. It's November.

The Rothschild Family has played an important historical role in the world. In fact, we probably owe Nathan Rothschild a lot, since he helped Wellington finance the defeat of Napoleon, and saved England from a major banking crisis. However, the family has become the target of conspiracy theorists everywhere, as they allegedly control…well, you name it.

Today's Short Subject: Most English speakers pronounce the name of this family as 'Roths-child'. Yiddish speakers pronounce it the original way, 'Rot-schild'. The family has a coat of arms, a 'Schild', and it's red, or 'rot'. Rothschild is the subject of many jokes in Yiddish, as the archetypal success story, a poor guy who made good. Sort of the Rockefeller of the Jews. So it's no wonder that there's a song (you'll recognise it) called If I Were a Rothschild. Bi-di-bi-di-bum.

Today's Feature Film: I stumbled across this film, The House of Rothschild, on Youtube, and I was delighted. In the days before the infamous Hayes Office took over, this remarkably sympathetic portrayal of the Rothschild Family was possible. Contrary to popular opinion, the Hayes Office wasn't only concerned with keeping 'immorality' out of film: basically, it wanted film to conform to a particular version of reality, which can be loosely described as 'right-wing American Catholic'. (I hope that guy scares you. He scares me.)

The film's fairly accurate. For instance, Nathan Rothschild did always lean against a certain pillar at the stock exchange, and he scared the life out of the other Ferengi there. One of his daughters did marry an English aristocrat. And of course, the brothers, who all started out in Frankfurt, owed their success to the fact that, as a family, they could trust each other implicitly. Fascinating concept.

What else is accurate is the portrayal of the position of Jews in western European society. Think about that. Needing to blackmail the powers that be in order to emancipate your own people, so they don't have to live in a ghetto? Wait a minute, wasn't that just an aberrant episode in the mid-20th Century? Hm…

Maybe this film gives us more to think about than we first supposed.