''The Spirit of '76'' (1917) was a controversial

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

that depicted both factual and fictional events during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. The film was directed by Frank Montgomery and produced and written by Robert Goldstein. Goldstein would later go to Federal prison for violating the

Espionage Act The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code (War ...

, because of scenes depicted in the film. No prints of the movie have been known to survive, and it is categorized as a

lost film A lost film is a feature Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature (CAD), could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (software design) is an intentional distinguishing char ...

Synopsis

A romance between King George III of Great Britain and a Quaker girl, Catherine, who becomes his

morganatic Morganatic marriage, sometimes called a left-handed marriage, is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal's position or privileges being passed to the spous ...

wife, forms the early part of the story. Catherine is really half native, being the daughter of a French adventurer and an indigenous woman, adopted and brought to England by a Quaker voyager. The hardships of the American colonists are shown and their rebellion against the English rule. In this rebellion, Catherine sees a chance to avenge herself upon the King, who has legally married a German princess. She goes to America and becomes a power over a tribe of indigenous people. One of her aides is her own brother, who had been adopted by a colonist. Brother and sister are unaware of the relationship until the close of the story. The gallant fight which the Americans under General Washington wage against the English troops and the indigenous people under Catherine's lead forms a thrilling phase of the story and the chief incidents with which every American is familiar are dramatically set forth. In addition, there are several minor plots and romances, some of which end happily, others tragically, when the war is over and the fight for freedom won. :''Motography'' (1917)

Cast

* Adda Gleason - Catherine Montour * Howard Gaye - Lionel Esmond *George Chesborough - Walter Butler * Chief Dark Cloud - Joseph Brant *

Doris Pawn Doris Pawn (born Doris Alice Pahn; December 29, 1894 – March 30, 1988) was an American silent era film actress. Early life Pahn was born on December 29, 1894, to Louise Marie Hasse (1867–1925) and Martin Pahn. She had three sister ...

- Madeline Brant * Jack Cosgrove (actor) - George III * Norval McGregor - Lorimer Steuart *

Jane Novak Jane Novak (born Johana Barbara Novak; January 12, 1896 – February 3, 1990) was an American actress of the silent film era. Background Jane Novak was born Johana Barbara Novak in St. Louis, Missouri to Bohemian immigrant Joseph Jerome Novak a ...

- Cecil Steuart *William Colby - Sir John Johnson *Lottie Cruez - Peggy Johnson * Chief Big Tree - Gowah *William Freeman - Lord Chatham * William Lawrence - Captain Boyd *William Beery - George Washington *Ben Lewis - Benjamin Franklin *Jack McCready - Tim Murphy

Production

The film was produced by Robert Goldstein (born September 21, 1883), a

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

native of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

ancestry, and a costume supplier in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

. Goldstein outfitted the cast of D. W. Griffith's ''

The Birth of a Nation ''The Birth of a Nation'', originally called ''The Clansman'', is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play ''The Clan ...

'' (1915), and was reportedly inspired by Griffith's film to produce a cinematic interpretation of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

. Griffith initially encouraged and cooperated with Goldstein, but later distanced himself from that project in favor of pursuing his own treatment of the subject, the 1924 film '' America''.The Unluckiest Man in Movie History (13 June 2000)
Slate.com archive
Retrieved 30 September 2013. ''The Spirit of '76'' depicted multiple atrocities committed by the British side during the war, including soldiers bayoneting babies and raping unarmed women, the

Wyoming massacre The Battle of Wyoming, also known as the Wyoming Massacre, was a military engagement during the American Revolutionary War between Patriot militiamen and a mixed force of Loyalist soldiers and Iroquois raiders. The clash took place in the Wyomi ...

, and the

Cherry Valley massacre The Cherry Valley massacre was an attack by British and Iroquois forces on a fort and the town of Cherry Valley in central New York on November 11, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War. It has been described as one of the most horrific ...

. It also contained scenes with no known factual basis, such as a physical assault on

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

, and a sexual liaison between the king and

Catherine Montour Catharine Montour, also known as Queen Catharine (died after 1791), was a prominent Iroquois leader living in ''Queanettquaga,'' a Seneca village of ''Sheaquaga'', informally called Catharine's Town, in western New York. She has often been confuse ...

— possibly based on his supposed (and equally fictitious) relationship with

Hannah Lightfoot Hannah Lightfoot (12 October 1730 – before December 1759), known as "The Fair Quaker", was a Quaker in Westminster. She married Isaac Axford in December 1753 but, before the end of the following year, had disappeared. Later gossip, originally i ...

Government censorship and confiscation

The film premiered in Chicago in May 1917 — just one month after the United States entered

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

on the side of Britain. The head of Chicago's police censorship board, Metallus Lucullus Cicero Funkhouser, confiscated the film at the behest of the Justice department on grounds that it generated hostility toward Britain. Goldstein trimmed the offending scenes and received federal approval to continue the Chicago run; but the film premiered in Los Angeles a few months later with the deleted scenes restored. After an investigation, the government concluded that Goldstein's action constituted "aiding and abetting the German enemy", and seized the film once again.

Criminal prosecution

Goldstein was charged in federal court with violating the

. At trial, the U.S. prosecutor argued that as the war effort demanded total Allied support, Goldstein's film was seditious on its face. Goldstein was convicted on charges of attempted incitement to riot and to cause insubordination, disloyalty, and mutiny by U.S. soldiers then in uniform as well as prospective recruits, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Implications were made throughout the trial that Goldstein was a German spy, although no evidence was presented in support of that accusation. The judgment was later upheld by an appellate court. Goldstein's attorneys were unable to argue for protection under the

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

because the Supreme Court had ruled in 1915 that movies lacked such protection. (That ruling was overturned in 1952.) His sentence was later commuted to three years by President Wilson.

Aftermath

After his release from jail, Goldstein tried and failed to re-establish himself as a filmmaker in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, Switzerland,

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, and England (which refused him a visa). Eventually he landed in Germany, where he was equally unsuccessful. His biographer, Anthony Slide, could locate no communications from him after 1935, and thought it likely that he perished in a

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

. After Slide's book was published, a telegram sent from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1938 was discovered. In the telegram, Goldstein referred to "my enforced return o the U.S. three years ago..." suggesting that the Germans had deported him in 1935. Review of 1935 Immigration and Naturalization Service arriving passenger records show him arriving in

on August, 16, 1935, ship name

SS Albert Ballin SS ''Albert Ballin'' was an ocean liner of the Hamburg-America Line launched in 1923 and named after Albert Ballin, the visionary director of the Hamburg-America line, who had committed suicide several years earlier. In 1935, the ship was renam ...

with departure port of Hamburg, Germany. His ''confirmed'' whereabouts after 1938 are unknown. However, we see through contemporary records that in March 1940 he filed for Social Security using his given name ''ROBERT GOLDSTEIN'', birth date September 27, 1883, in

San Francisco, CA San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, son of Simon Goldstein and Margret ''(sic)'' Moran. There is circumstantial US Federal Census evidence that may place him as an inmate in Rikers Island Penitentiary in 1940 and again as an inmate in

Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane The Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane is a former state hospital in Willard, New York Willard is a hamlet primarily in the Town of Romulus, Seneca County, New York, United States on the Ovid town line. It is located two miles (3 km) west of ...

in 1950. In both cases there is an inmate named Robert Goldstein born in California with a birth date within 2-3 years of 1883. Robert's younger brother, Louis Stanislaus Goldstein (September 9, 1894-April 25, 1950), passed away in 1950. His obituaryThe Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, April 27, 1950, pg. 40 in the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

makes no mention of Robert.

Legacy

In his 1995 book '' Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong'', Prof.

James Loewen James William Loewen (February 6, 1942August 19, 2021) was an American sociologist, historian, and author. He was best known for his 1995 book, '' Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong''. Early life Loewen ...

notes that Goldstein's prosecution was consistent with Wilson's targeting anyone suspecting of holding anti-British views, which the president claimed gave aid to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

References

External links

*
''American Law'' report on Goldstein Trial''Federal Reporter'' on Goldstein's trialArticle from ''The Jewish Atlanta Times''Article from ''Slate'' Magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spirit Of '76, The 1917 films 1917 drama films American Revolutionary War films 1910s English-language films American black-and-white films American silent feature films Films set in the 1770s Films set in Pennsylvania Film censorship in the United States Film controversies in the United States Lost American films Silent American drama films 1917 lost films Lost drama films 1910s American films