By C. W. Johnson, Jr.
At the height of World War I, a filmmaker is arrested, prosecuted, and jailed for treason after making a patriotic film.
Now That Should Be A Movie.
Short Pitch
It is called Robert Goldstein and The Spirit of ’76.
It is a Courtroom Drama.
In the vein of Trumbo.
It is like The Post meets The Artist.
It follows an aspiring producer named Robert Goldstein.
And a young actress named Jane Novak.
As they make a patriotic epic during the silent area of Hollywood.
Problems arise when America enters World War I and the film is accused of being treasonous and a violation of the Espionage Act of 1917.
Together they will remain friends as Robert weathers prosecution and imprisonment by the American government.
The idea came to me when I read a blurb about Goldstein in a history book while preparing for a test in college and thought about the similarities of the Espionage Act and other hysteria during The Great War and that of The Patriot Act and other US government actions after the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.
My unique approach would be the juxtaposition of the idyllic dreamworld of early Hollywood against the harsh realities of big government and a hysterical public mindset during war time.
A set piece would be when Goldstein finds out that someone else now owns his film The Spirit of ’76 and has released it under a new title. He hurries to the packed theater where is being shown. He observes how the audience was enthralled by the picture, applauding at the same movements as had other audiences. A bittersweet moment as an unappreciated artist draws pleasure from seeing his art appreciated.
The target audience would be history buffs, film nerds, fans of classic cinema, students of political science, and men and women thirty through sixty.
Audiences would like to see this movie for the universal themes of passionate artists misunderstood by society and underdogs striving against the system.
Today’s book I would like to pitch as a movie is Robert Goldstein and The Spirit of ’76, edited and compiled by Anthony Slide, from Scarecrow Press.
With a story as shocking as that of Goldstein and the pivotal part World War I played in shaping our modern understanding of freedom, it is disappointing that Slide’s book is the only public history account we have of his ordeal. Furthermore, the book is mostly written by Goldstein himself. Slide had been interested in his story since the 1970s, but it was not until 1991 that the Academy of Motion Pictures and Art informed him that a manuscript, written in third person by Goldstein, had been discovered. Goldstein had submitted it to the Academy in hopes that they would hear his story and help him find legal representation. The Academy turned down his request and the manuscript was forgotten for over half a century. Slide published it with a few footnotes and articles pertinent to the case.
It is unfortunate that we only have Goldstein’s account because we have to take everything he says at his word. There are times in the book, like the instance in which he claims a dentist was trying to pry out and sell all his teeth, that one pictures him wearing a tin foil hat. However, his paranoia is understandable as all forces of society, governmental, professional, even familiar, were seemingly arrayed against him.
It is also important to remember that Goldstein was a flawed hero. Perhaps he was foolish to include controversial scenes in his film. He strikes one as an artist undone by his passionate drive to create, a tortured genius driven to madness in his quest for fame, deluded by hopes that his masterpiece would be praised. He was a great admirer of the infamous D. W. Griffith, creator of the KKK eulogizing epic The Birth of A Nation. Furthermore, not only did Goldstein provide the costumes for and was a financial backer of The Birth, but he also gifted Griffith a silver statuette of a mounted Klansman. However, if one thinks that nullifies any sympathy for Goldstein during his later trials which had nothing to do with the aforementioned flaws, then that is reason enough for his story to be a movie.
Goldstein got his start in the film industry through the costume business. His father was born in Germany and immigrated to California in the 1860 where he started a costume business in San Francisco. The younger Goldstein opened a second business in Los Angeles in the early 20th century. It would be through this business that he connected with many directors and actors.
Goldstein was enthralled by movies. According to his account, he would spend hours in the movie houses, entranced by the moving images. He had written plays, designed pageants and composed music, but none of them had quenched his thirst to create. Movies had created a “rhapsodic ecstasy in him which lasted with undiminished intensity for years.”
He was particularly moved by the sweeping epic grandeur of The Birth of A Nation. A desire grew in him to create a picture that would do for the American Revolution what Birth had done for the American Civil War. Such a film, he believed, would rekindle patriotism in the populace.
He said as much, in his account, during a conversation with director Charles F. Swickard. “My idea in taking the American Revolution for a subject is because it has a tremendous patriotic interest for the American public. Since [the end of] of the Spanish-American War, patriotism has been gradually dying out in the United States. And now, in 1915, it is almost obsolete for a vaudeville act to wave an American flag on the stage.” Even George M. Cohan, proclaimed writer of “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “The Yankee Doodle Boy”, had stopped writing patriotic songs. But Goldstein believed the United States was…
“…due for a revival of patriotism. I have noticed this in the effect that the patriotic Lincoln scene had in The Birth. Although The Birth was not built upon a patriotic platform. On the contrary, most of the G. A. R. [Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans] camps passed resolutions boycotting it. But in making this picture on the Revolution, it is my idea that a decided patriotic American Yankee Doodle, Wave the American flag standpoint be taken. If it is made on this basis, with a strong dramatic story, it cannot help but be a success with the American public.” (Robert Goldstein and The Spirit of ’76, p. 6)
When Swickard asked if he wanted to have the Germans produce the picture, Goldstein replied that that would not be good business sense, doubting they could spare any money. Furthermore, it would be foolish to risk the picture coming off as propaganda. But most of all his idea was to make “An American picture for Americans and financed by Americans.” Then he believed it would be a success.
Goldstein saw it as a divine sign when The Los Angeles Times published a column saying it was time for a patriotic film. His mentor, Griffith, had wanted to direct a film about the Revolution but was too busy atoning for Birth with his next film Intolerance. Goldstein stepped into the gap and started The Continental Producing Company and began shooting The Spirit of ’76.
The production of the film would be fascinating to explore in a movie due to the Wild West nature of Hollywood at the time. Space does not allow for an exploration of the financial deals of the company and its backers, but needless to say that when several things with the production went wrong, it had the appearance of sabotage. A film laboratory fire burned prints. A permit allowing the production to stage a fire did not arrive on time. A lot in which Goldstein was shooting in forced them out with only a day’s notice. When a projector used for reviewing the film would not run properly, he found upon inspection a razor inserted into the machinery. Goldstein himself had very little rest and went through a divorce during the production. Yet, despite all, he claimed he had never been happier in his life, enthused with the thrill of creating. Actress Jane Novak recalled that everyone on set believed the film would be one of the greatest. She recalled Mr. Goldstein as a soft spoken, gentle man.
The plot of The Spirit of ’76 itself was rather fanciful and convoluted, involving Indian princesses, witches, lovers who find out that they are siblings, and the quest of King George III’s mistress, Catherine Montour, inspired by the real-life Hannah Lightfoot, to become queen of America. Intercut with the story were scenes of Paul Revere’s Ride, the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Ringing of the Liberty Bell, The Battle of Oriskany, Washington praying At Valley Forge, Cornwallis surrendering at Yorktown, and, most fatally, the Cherry Valley massacre of American settlers by British soldiers and their Native American killing and scalping civilians, dragging off women with the implication of rape, and even bayonetting a baby.
Even during filming there was discussion if the picture would come off as too anti-British. Goldstein’s private secretary left because it was rumored the US Secret Service was spying on the production. He dismissed these fears because it was October 1916 and the United States had not entered World War I. Besides, his main actor, Howard Gaye was British, as well as his new private secretary. His bookkeeper was Canadian.
The Cherry Massacre scene, including the bayoneting of a baby, was documented in The American Revolution by John Fiske. Goldstein had not originally planned to show the massacre due to financial restraints, but a new editor came on board. According to Goldstein the editor was Ed Rippley. [Note: Slide’s research was unable to find an editor with that name and suggest it might have been Arthur D. Rippley.] According to Goldstein, Rippley urged that the massacre be shown, claiming the picture would fall flat if nothing was shown after all the buildup. So, Goldstein included the scenes.
The Spirit of ’76 premiered on May 7, 1917, in Chicago, partly due to the anti-British attitude exhibited by its largely Irish and German population. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The United States had just entered the war a month before on April 6th. The draft was instated on May 18, 1917.
The film received generally positive reviews. Genevieve Harris of the Monography wrote, “The picture gives opportunity for elaborate patriotic display…while the appeal is a patriotic one, no feeling of resentment is aroused against any of our present allies.” The Exhibitor’s Trade Review wrote that, “It inspires patriotism. It has some truly wonderful moments and should cause the red blood of any American to tingle.”
However, the head of the police censorship board, get this, named Metallus Lucullus Cicero Funkhouser, disagreed. He had also banned Mary Pickford’s patriotic vehicle The Little American as it might offend the city’s German populace. Funkhouser’s primary objection to the film were the scenes of the British committing atrocities during the Cherry Valley massacre. He believed such a depiction would arouse sentiment against America’s new ally, Great Britain. Goldstein tried to defy Funkhouser’s ban on May 14, 1917, and the film was confiscated by the police. According to Goldstein, two hundred policemen showed up and blocked the entrance of the theater. Only members of the court were allowed to view the picture and most all enjoyed the show. After a hearing, the film was allowed to run, minus the objectionable scenes.
In November, the film was screened in Clune’s Auditorium for the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and approved to be shown nationwide. However, the version Goldstein had shown them had been the one cut for the Chicago screening. Goldstein then foolishly reinserted the massacre scenes. What was his motivation? Was he blindly dedicated to his artistic vision? Was he a creative rebel? Did he believe audiences would be more likely to see the film as told with the massacre scene, thus doing better financially, and allowing him to repay his investors? Whatever his reasoning, it would cost him.
A couple days after the release, Federal officials arrived at Goldstein’s Los Angeles office and seized 123,000 feet of “trims and outs” and all still photographs and script materials relating to the film. On November 26, 1917, The Federal Grand Jury indicted him on violations of sections 3 and 22 of the Espionage Act and Section 37 of the Penal Code relating to the Selective Service Act. Goldstein was imprisoned with bail set at $10,000. No one stepped forward with payment.
The Accusation: By showing the British committing atrocities Goldstein had sought to discourage enlistments and cause a mutiny in the United State military.
His trial, ignobly and ironically entitled The United States vs. The Spirit of ’76, took place at the height of war fever. He was attacked by the press. The Los Angeles Times accused him of being a spy. Many of the attacks reeked of Anti-Semitism, including reminders that Judas was also a Jew. When The German Consul in Los Angeles Franz Bopp was indicted with conspiracy to blow up munition ships, The Lost Angeles Daily Times ran a superimposed image of Goldstein and Bopp standing side by side. George L. Hutchin, who came up with the scripted scenario that Goldstein later rewrote, claimed that Bopp was a “prospective backer” of the film.
According to Goldstein, his lawyers were useless, behaving like burlesque actors. They did not call Ed Rippley to testify that he had requested that the massacre be included. They did not subpoena the president of the Company or his attorney, on whose advice he had acted in exhibiting the film. Or the theater owner who had secretly cut the film as was his right under the contract. Actress Jane Novak was called upon to testify that Goldstein had talked about being a German spy. However, the landlady who had explained to Novak that he was joking was not called upon to witness. W. L. Brock, who researched the film, claimed that Goldstein was vehemently Anglophobic, refusing to have any Englishmen on set. Goldstein’s lawyers failed to cross examine Block, who would have had to admit his lie since the leading man in Spirt of ‘76 was the English actor Howard Gaye. The most they did was suggest that the uniforms worn by the soldiers in the massacre scene were Hessians, German soldiers hired by the British.
Judge Benjamin F. Bledsoe was also seemingly against him. Whenever a witness was about to make a statement that would hurt the prosecution, the judge would declare a recess. Judge Bledsoe also failed to take into consideration that one witness, the orchestra leader in charge of performing the music accompanying the film, testified that the audiences always exhibited signs of patriotism during the showings. Nor did he allow the fact that neither downturns in enlistments or mutinies in the armed forces occurred following exhibitions of the film to have any bearing on his verdict.
According to Goldstein, Bledsoe was A Four Minute Man, chairman of the National Defense League, the American Legion, and the League to Enforce Peace. The Four Minute Men were civilian volunteers who went around to various institutions giving speeches of four-minute length passed out to them by the Committee on Public Information, agency. The National Defense League, also known as The National Security League, was a nationalist nonprofit group in favor of universal military conscription, Americanization of immigrants, English as the national language, and national economic regulation to keep the military prepared for war. [Note: Slide could not find any evidence to back up Goldstein’s claims.]
Even supporters of Goldstein and his film were subject to public suspicion. James Wilson, A veteran of the Spanish-American War, was threatened with expulsion from a retirement home for soldiers after expressing support for the film. The Los Angeles Times ran the story of a man with the name Jesse Goldstein changing to James Goodwin after repeatedly being asked if he was related to Goldstein. One of Goldstein’s lawyers and former president of the Continental Producing Company, Joseph Scott, was denied a passport to France due to his defense of Goldstein.
The jury found Goldstein guilty on the first two charges but acquitted him on the third. On April 29, 1918, Judge Bledsoe sentenced Goldstein to 10 years in the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island with a fine of $5,000 on the first count. For the second count he gave him two more years at McNeil. Judge Bledsoe’s decision was based on the 1915 Supreme Court’s decision in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that films were not protected by the First Amendment. (Note: that decision was later overturned in the 1952 ruling in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, an ironic name since some of the greatest civil liberty violations in US history occurred under another Wilson.) Goldstein, who had been sitting in the Los Angeles county jail since November 1917 appealed, but a new trial was denied.
Goldstein arrived at McNeil in mid-June, 1918. He immediately began to suspect that conspiracy against him was afoot. And he had reason enough to give such fears credence. The Bank of Italy which had played a major role in bankrolling his film was not charged with conspiracy to undermine the American war effort as had been Goldstein. The board of directors of the Continental Producing Company had not been dragged before a court with charges of treason. Goldstein began to lose weight from the stress, believing prison officials and other inmates were seeking to agitate him to the point of insanity so the powers that be could locked him away in an asylum. A man named Pelletier claiming to be with the German Secret Service approached him. He said he had a plan to help free Goldstein, which included him drinking the contents of a bottle. Goldstein turned the bottle over to the guards, believing that it was poison. Perhaps, he thought, his creditors and competitors in the film industry were behind the whole thing.
His suspicion and feelings of martyrdom were not unfounded when considering two other controversial films around the same time of Spirit. The American Protective League, a collection of civilians whistle blowers who informed law enforcement of potential German sympathizers, who often just anti-war activists or holders of radical politics, had also seized the film The Girl in the Web, claiming that scenes of Americans and Japanese fighting in the streets of Yokohama were created to arouse bad feelings between the US and its then wartime ally Japan. Another film was the Caillaux Case. The film dealt with the case of Henriette Caillaux, second wife of the Prime Minister of France, Joseph Caillaux. On March 16, 1914, she shot and killed Gaston Calmette, editor of the newspaper Le Figaro. The film portrayed the couple as pro-German conspirators and traitors to France. Furthermore, it featured scenes of British soldiers committing atrocities against civilians. Yet none of the producers, directors, cast, and crew were charged by the government or treated as traitors the way Goldstein had been.
Yet despite the persecution, Goldstein failed to lose his creative spark. He dreamed of making another film. He studied the human nature of the prisoners, discovering that men who were guilty did their time easily, while innocent men went insane, especially during winter when less sunlight reached the prison’s interior. He also made note that an American flag hung ironically over the prison, writing on page 143 that he “who had given his utmost to eulogize American patriotism should have to eat his prison bread while looking at an American flag draped around the cage of the guard with a loaded gun.”
Goldstein continued to petition from behind bars for legal and financial help from friends and colleagues. With the war ending, people began to see the folly of the Espionage Act of 1917. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who had originally upheld the act as constitutional, was later quoted by Zechariah Chafee in his 1919 book Freedom of Speech In War Time as saying…
…In truth, the passage of the simple language of the Espionage Act of 1917, little as we thought of it at the time, was the deadliest blow ever struck at the freedom of the press in the United States, and the beginning of the series of encroachments on the civil rights of every kind, whose full consequences we are dimly beginning to realize
The Espionage Act was passed on June 15, 1917. The film closed at Chicago on June 14, 1917. Goldstein should have never been charged.
In Spring of 1919 the head of the War Emergency Division of Justice Department John Lord O’Brian finally began reviewing all those prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Upon his recommendations President Wilson tried to redeem himself from two years’ worth of civil liberty violations by issuing three pardons and 102 commutations. The later included Goldstein, whose sentence was commuted to three years.
Goldstein was released in late 1920. He returned to Los Angeles to find himself a social pariah and regarded as a crook. Unable to find work with the American film industry, he traveled to Europe. He tried to enter England but was refused a visa. Even on the continent he was unable to find work. After his father died, he returned to America to contest his will. He was greeted by a July 1924 headline from The San Francisco Chronicle reading “Spy Returning to Contest Will.” To their credit, the Chronicle later retracted the headline. Goldstein then moved to Germany. Unable to locate further information, Slide, writing in 1993, concluded that being a Jew he must have perished in the Holocaust. However, a telegram from 1938 has been found in which Goldstein referred to being deported from Nazi Germany in 1935. From there he disappears into the footnotes of history.
There are two possible human-interest subplots that could create an emotional depth to a film about Goldstein’s ordeal.
The first would be the turbulent relationship of Goldstein with his father and brother. When Goldstein tried to get his case overturned, he asked his father to send him a small sum for paying a lawyer. The elder Goldstein refused to send any funds. His father and brother Louis were just two of the many characters he had to deal with financially, coming around to collect on the debts owed them due to their backing of the film. Goldstein even believes Louis and the elder Goldstein conspired to have him declared insane to collect their shares of the company. As Goldstein headed to McNeil, he had to sell to his father his costume company. After his release he writes on page 153 that there…
“…had been a letter from his father’s lawyer, Percy E. Towne, accusing him of lacking filial affection toward his father, and other remarks that were the limit of hypocrisy, stating that his father would make a far more generous settlement with him if he did not insist on a strictly business arrangement. The conscienceless actions of his father toward him were passed his own belief. He was always looking for some action on the part of his father which would show that his past experiences had given him a wrong impression of him. But no! he had run true to form.”
Then on page 155 he writes that when meeting his father, he “seemed as affectionate as ever.” He even turned over a policy which had come due while his son was in prison. But then in a conversation with his father, he discovered that nearly everyone, including relatives, seemed to view him as a crook. He came to the sad realization that the elder Goldstein was basking in the sympathies of those same friends and relatives.
The second would be that of Goldstein and Jane Novak. As stated earlier, Novak was one of the actresses on the production, and believed everyone else was excited to be part of the picture. Then during Goldstein’s trial, her testimony was used against him, leaving him feeling betrayed. However, a year after his release, Goldstein and Novak met in Berlin and reconciled. Novak wrote that “he was the same gentle, soft-spoken man I had known as many years before.” They never met again. Perhaps poetic license could be taken and she could be the one who informs Goldstein of the fate of his film.
And what of the film itself? After The Spirit of ‘76 was seized by U. S. Assistant Attorney Burret S .Mills, a member of the American Protective League, it was bought and retitled The Eternal Spirit of Seventy-Six and shown without the offensive scenes. According to Goldstein this was done by Judge Benjamin F. Bledsoe, having decided to go into the motion picture industry after sentencing him to 10 years in prison. The film was advertised with the following notice: I was a notorious German spy but now I have entered the service of the United States. In 1921 a recut version of The Spirit of ’76 was released by the All-American Film Company and screened at the Town Hall in New York. By then, with the threat of German militarism supposedly eliminated with The Treaty of Versailles, the critics claimed the film anti-British sentiments made it propaganda for the new boogeyman, Irish Nationalist. The film is now considered, like Goldstein, lost to history. It was last owned by the Clark-Comelius Corporation, recut, and retailed Hearts Aflame. Goldstein was in New York when he heard it was playing at a theater in Newark. He hurriedly took the ferry and found the theatre to be packed. He observed how the audience was enthralled by the picture, applauding where they always did.
And there’s how a movie about The United States vs. The Spirit of ’76 should end, a bittersweet moment as an unappreciated artist draws pleasure from seeing his art appreciated
There are three reasons that I believe Goldstein’s story should be a movie.
First, our society needs a cautionary tale about how hysteria and overreaction to perceived views can destroy the lives and liberties of fellow citizens. As Goldstein said in his letter to the Academy of Motion Picture and Sciences, “what happened to me because I produced a picture, might happen to anyone in the game without their being any more at fault than I was.”
When the issue of political persecution in American history is brought up, most people immediately think of McCarthyism, J. Edger Hoover, The House on Un-American Activities, and the Hollywood blacklist. As wrong as those reactions to Cold War tensions during the Second Red Scare were, they pale in comparison to the violation of civil rights, oppression of political opposition and violance against German Americans, anti-war activists, pacifists, anarchist, socialists, and others political dissenters during World War I and the First Red Scare. Some people were tarred and feathered and even lynched. I’m surprised that Jay Roach, Robert Redford, Peter Landsmen, Oliver Stone, Clint Eastwood, Rob Reiner, Aaron Sorkin, Warren Beatty or other artists with an eye for period pieces and political dramas have not produced any films focusing on this period of civil liberty violations and persecution. The ordeal and work of Dalton Trumbo, blacklisted during the 1950s and screenwriter behind classics like Spartacus, Lonely Are the Brave and Papillon, is common knowledge while the fate of Robert Goldstein is unknown.
Goldstein’s story should have been a movie during the days following September 11th, 2001, when any opposition the Bush Administration and War on Terror were met with accusations of “wanting the terrorists to win,” it is still particularly pertinent for our time. It has been said that a lie can travel halfway around the world before truth has even gotten out of bed. Now, thanks to social media, a lie can travel all around the world and rape truth in its sleep. This is particularly dangerous because the lie is often a soundbite of less than thirty seconds. Like the massacre scenes in The Spirit of ’76, they are often taken out of context. Many people, especially young people in America, have fallen into an either-or, black and white view of the world in which there can be neither nuance, gray areas nor compromise. One must “pick a side” or be on the “right side of history.” Such sentiments are similar to those expressed by the political persecutors of Goldstein, who believed that since a movie showed a few scenes of atrocities committed over a hundred years before by America’s contemporary English ally, then it must be anti-British, therefore it must be pro-German, therefore it is treasonous against America.
One does not have to look far for similar incidents in America’s current political landscape. In 2017 there was a clash between white supremacist and Neo-Nazi groups and far left groups during a protest over some Confederate statues in Charlottesville, Virginia. Then President Donald J. Trump held a press conference in which he said there “very fine people on both sides” at the protest. People on the modern-day rumor-mill called Twitter took that to mean he was calling Neo-Nazis very fine people. This was taken to mean that the president supported Neo-Nazis. And if you were a supporter of President Trump and/or Confederate statues, therefore you must be a Neo-Nazi. And since Nazis were the Uber-villains of history, therefore they are not human. Therefore, it was okay to commit violance against the president’s supporters because they were not human. Even current President Joe Biden claimed during a presidential candidate debate that President Trump called Neo-Nazis “very fine people.”
However, while is much for which the former president can be criticized for, calling Neo-Nazis “very fine people” is not one of them. Anyone who did their due diligence to do their own research could tell you that President Trump did not say what his opponents claimed. A simple look at the White House statement on Charlottesville or the full conscript of the press conference reveals that he explicitly said he was not talking about the Neo-Nazis and that he condemned the KKK and other racist groups. You can be a supporter of President Biden and still see how the mindset that sent a man to jail for a few scenes in a patriotic film is still alive and well today.
Second reason I would like to see Goldstein’s story in a film is personal. A few years ago, after two mass shootings had rocked America and everyone was pointing their fingers at everyone and everything else, from guns to medications to video games, I decided to write a Facebook post about how we should point the finger at ourselves and contemplate how our actions that are creating a harsh, graceless society are the problem. Entitled “Only We The People Can Prevent Mass Shootings,” it addressed several problems, included radical individualism, loss of community, lack of personal responsibility, the dearth of civility, an overabundance of inflammatory rhetoric and increased political and societal polarization. I described how in the pass I went through some very dark periods which anger and bitterness added to the mental torment of PTSD made me fit the bill for a profile of a mass shooter. Yet, I had family and friends who supported me. Most of all I took personal responsibility for myself and became a productive member of society. I ended the post listing several ways we can make our society better by our everyday actions. To sum it up, it doesn’t take an Act of Congress to love our neighbor. That way we might see either a reduction or an end to mass shootings.
A week after posting the essay, I received a call from the Louisiana State Police. The officer explained that they had a software that trolled social media looking for key words. A few of those words had appeared in my post out of context. Because of a few words taken out of context I was investigated by the police as a possible mass shooter because I wrote an essay about ending mass shootings. Because of a few words taken out of context, the FBI were now involved to cover their rear for failing to investigate the Parkland shooter who had explicitly posted online that he wanted to be a school shooter. Because of a few words taken out of context, someone who had a personal grudge against me had called the police. Because of a few words taken out of context, law enforcement assumed that my post was not naïve musings about how to prevent mass shootings but a sign that I was about to commit a mass shooting. Because of a few key words taken out of context, I had to meet with an FBI agent and a Louisiana police officer to assure them I was not violent. The police officer said he agreed with most of what my post said, but still had to investigate me because of a few words taken out of context.
Not only did the incident leave me shaken and with less faith in government and law enforcement, wondering how could I expect the FBI to keep America safe like the agent claimed when their agents did not even know how to read an essay in context, but it was a reminder that the hysteria from the World War I era is still in play. The FBI agent said it was illegal to shout “fire” in a crowded theatre. However, that is not law, but a paraphrase from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s opinion on Schenck v. United States, a 1919 case in which the Supreme Court violated the freedom of speech of private citizens passing out flyers encouraging young men to resist the military draft. This decision was later overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio. Not only was I troubled by law enforcement because of a few words taken out of context, but the reasoning was based on a faulty understanding from the same time period in which Goldstein was oppressed. Law enforcement compared my exhortations, which I saw in the vein of Gary Cooper’s in Meet John Doe Charlie Chaplin’s final speech in The Great Dictator, to falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. They did not take into consideration whether I used the phrase “on fire” to describe the movie, whether I was discussing the lack of fire exits in case a fire broke out, whether I had said “why did that character do that for” with an accent that made “for” sound like “fire,” or whether there really was a fire and I was trying to warn people to save their lives. Like Goldstein, I was hounded for a few words taken out of context and misunderstood.
Writing about Goldstein’s ordeal is part of my own journey of healing from false accusations I have received in both private and legal institutions.
Thirdly, perhaps knowing that a film about the American Revolution was suppressed in the past would result in more films about that era. The Revolution has a pageantry and epic scale that deserves the big screen treatment. It is loaded with stories that should be movies, from political intrigue to action blockbusters, from spy thrillers to naval adventures and western shoot-‘em ups to African American heroes and women’s history. One of those stories, Hamilton, is now a Broadway hit.
It would be interesting to know how much politics in the past played in the prevention of films about the Revolutionary era. W. D. Griffith ‘s 1924 Revolutionary epic America bombed at the box office, partly due to their director’s failure to distinguish either the Americans or the British as the protagonists. The audience did not know which side to cheer for. Was the fate of Griffith’s protégé on his mind during the production? According to the Netflix documentary Five Came Back, Frank Capera, one of my favorite directors, planed to direct a biopic of George Washington. However, it was 1940 and due to America’s relations with Great Britain in the face of Nazi Germany’s aggression, the project was shelved. Permanently. Perhaps the memory of another director who had made a film critical of America’s Albion ally was still fresh in the industry’s subconscious.
Goldstein’s story is just waiting to be told as a movie. Not only does the film industry like to produce films about the entertainment industry and Hollywood history every year, at least one is nominated for Best Picture at the annual Academy Awards. The battle and sacrifice for freedom of speech and self-expression by filmmakers at the dawn of the art is common ground between both artists and audiences. While Goldstein shares a slight resemblance with Leonardo DiCaprio, I could also see him played by other actors with track records of portraying passionate artists, like Jude Law, Nickolas Hoult, William Defoe or Adrian Brody.
Because it is a timely cautionary tale of the dangers that overreaction and political polarization are to individual freedom and art is why I believe that Robert Goldstein and The Spirit of ’76 should be honored with a movie.
