Robert Goldstein(IV)
- Writer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Costume Designer
The son of a German immigrant, Robert Goldstein was the owner of a
business in Los Angeles that supplied costumes to the emerging movie
industry. He wanted to try his hand at film producing, spending
$200,000 to produce an ultra-patriotic movie, THE SPIRIT OF '76. No
print of the film is known to have survived, but it naturally portrayed
a number of well-known events from the American Revolution such as Paul
Revere's ride and the suffering at Valley Forge. The plot centered on
the King's mistress Caterine Montour, who wanted to become the "Queen
of America, " and of course portrayed a number British atrocities.
America had just entered the World War, and some authorities believed
scenes depicting the Redcoats bayoneting a baby and apparently raping a
young maiden would provoke hatred against their British allies.
Goldstein ignored an earlier warning and had restored the objected-to
scenes for a Los Angeles showing and found him self prosecuted under a
wartime Espionage Act and sentenced to three years in prison. He went
into jail in 1918 and served three years of a ten-year sentence before
his sentence was commuted. Financially ruined, he spent 15 years in
Germany after his release before he returned to the United States. He
sent a number of letters to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences, complaining of his ill-treatment and asking the Academy to
assist him in getting a job in the Motion Picture Industry. He was the
subject of a book, ROBERT GOLDSTEIN AND THE SPIRIT OF '76 by Anthony
Slide (1993). In Robertson Davies's 1991 novel MURTHER & WALKING SPIRTS
(1991) there is a scene in which a rediscovered print of THE SPIRIT OF
'76 is shown. When Mel Gibson's THE PATRIOT (2000) premiered,
Goldstein's fate was discussed again. The online magazine SLATE had
articles about him in June and July of 2000, describing him as "The
Unluckiest Man in Movie History." Slate speculated at one point that as
a Jew Goldstein probably died in the Holocaust, but later found that
the last Goldstein was heard from he had been expelled from Germany and
was in New York City in 1938.