In 1917 the contradiction between liberty, nationhood and revolution came to the inevitable crisis. Then the land of liberty joined the other realms in casting out its heritage when the silent film The Spirit of '76 was banned and its director, Robert Goldstein, was jailed for anti-British activism for having demonized the British in depicting British and Hessian atrocities in the Revolution. In winding up the prosecution's case of pro- German activism against Goldstein, the US District Attorney, as the US Attorneys were then called, seethed with such vile anti-Semitic remarks that today the closing arguments are unprintable. Small wonder Hollywood has had little to say of the Revolution; on the few occasions when Hollywood has approached the subject, the motion picture industry has exercised extreme caution.
Although from Goldstein's experience in defending unsuccessfully the gift of sweet liberty, a dreary pall has settled over the genre on silver and small screens, sweet liberty that little which has been produced has enjoyed some unexpected influences.
The Abbott and Costello fantasy Time of their Lives re-stirred interest in chamber music which was all but extinct by the time which the film was released. Bearing the moniker title, the film Sweet Liberty, with Mash star Alan Alda molting from his type-cast charming surliness into a kinder genteel intellectual, publicized the work of re-enactor groups who dress in traditional uniforms or period attire, set up camp in the old fashioned way and replay the forgotten battles of yore. Fast's Crossing is frequently used as a teaching tool in the schools though the TV version probably did not sell as well as the book upon which it is based.
Yet an irony that underlines this entire genre grows from the successful Disney serial
The Swamp Fox with Leslie Nielsen in the title role. Swamp Fox recalled the adventures
of Francis Marion in his stealthful guerrilla war against British occupation using the cover of the Carolina Swamps. Much of the legendary account, including the Independence Day raid, would be transported much later to the silver screen in the equally popular film The Patriot. As popular as the Swamp Fox was, little was learned from it.
Many of the fans of the Swamp Fox would one day march in straight lines against the Viet Cong in a different Revolution, an enemy that used the cover of the bush for irregular hit-and-run tactics and refused formal battle melting away whenever the US mustered a superior force to face a challenge. A military historian commenting as early as 1965 on the Vietnam War then escalating bitterly noted the paradox.
I'm sure Goldstein might chuckle at these unexpected bonuses that sweet liberty can surface when the past is dredged up to meet the present.
What would Goldstein say of his persecutors? I think that there Goldstein might chuckle even harder that DW Griffiths' film which bears the fallacious title Birth of A Nation though celebrated by his tormentors as history written with electricity cannot be aired as irretrievably racist. And while no one influential proposes Goldstein for the medal of freedom and none of the patriotic groups which claim to preserve the heritage of sweet liberty promote the few films inspired by the Revolution, Goldstein might chuckle even harder if from the celestial realm he could visit internet sites launched by the German neo-right and find himself celebrated as a German victim of Anglo-American imperialism. Goldstein had won what few of the immortals ever attain: demi-godhood from a people not their own.
Not even those whom Jefferson called the demi-gods, the American Revolutionaries earned a like tribute. When the cause of liberty is remembered in other lands, it is the French Revolution which is recalled and the Marseilles sung; Wheelin' Jenny, Damn the Defiant and the Spirit of '76 have long since been forgot.