The Prince of Hesse is fleeing for his life, so he deposits his Bank of England notes with Mayer Rothschild at 5% -- notes gained by renting his troops to England to die in the American Revolution. Mayer sends them to his son, Nathan, in London -- played by Erich Ponto. He uses them to gain a foothold in the gold trade, then in transferring money from London to Wellington in Spain.
In the meantime, he is opposed by the British banking and trading interests. Not because he is Jewish, but because he is not one of them. Those are the points raised throughout this money: English snobbery, shortsighted stupidity, and only Ponto can see a little more clearly into matters, search out information and use it to his advantage. In the end, he ruins all the bankers, and worse, their depositors, the ultimate source of all their funds.
Despite a very anti-Semitic postscript to the film, the message is the ultimate evil of bankers of every stripe, jealous of others' success, seeking their own profits. Ponto gives a fine performance, trying desperately to fit in, rebuffed at every turn, elated when his plans succeed, screamingly depressed when they do not. Hans Stiebner, as his agent who always seems to have the news before anyone else, is also excellent, as a man who has come out of the poor Jewish ghetto, yet acts as if he is still there.
Yet in the end, this movie is about the evil of everyone: the bankers, the Jews, Wellington, who is no more than a womanizing playboy, the English, who refuse to admit that it was the Prussians who won Waterloo, the network of Jews through Europe and North Africa who whittle ten thousand guineas in London to 5500 in Spain, Wellington, who steals another five hundred, the French Minister of Security who gets half of the 'commissions'.... it's a clear message that no one can be trusted. Its us against the world, and we -- meaning Germany, of course -- must and will win.
