Robert Goldstein's film Spirit of 1776 galloped from Paul Revere's ride
straight through to Yorktown. Following seizure of
the film by the government in
1917, Goldstein was jailed as an anti-British agitator until
the Democrats were trounced from power in the 1920 General Elections.
A copy might be somewhere in US government archives.
The essential plot was borrowed in 1924 by DW Griffiths for
the film America which failed at the box office. Spirit may have also inspired
The Howards of Virginia (available on DVD at Barnes & Noble.com).
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Goldstein's Spitit of 1776 was probably itself inspired by James Fennimore
Cooper's Lionel Lincoln. Cooper's classic work on the Revolution The Spy
was never made into a movie. Cinema goers of all ages have seen one of the many versions
of The Last of the Mohegans about the French and Indian War (1754-1763)
which has been made into more movies than exist in the entire Revolutionary War genre.
Although the Spy works on multiuple levels of irony in a cloudy
layer of moral ambiguity, the penetrating story never was filmed.
Likewise, many of the other great authors on the American Revolution would never see their
works performed on the silver screen:
Kenneth Roberts, Cornell Lengell, F Van Wyck Brooks, and Noel B Gearson.
 
Lydia Bailey
Kenneth Roberts's Lydia Bailey makes a tour de force
over the problems of the young republic in
dealing with foreign affairs in the uncertain Napoleanonic era.
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Kenneth Roberts the chronicler of Arundell in Maine from the French and Indian War through
the War of 1812 did see Northwest Passage about the French and Indian War starring
Spencer Tracy and Robert Young go to the screen. However none of Roberts writings on
the Revolution: Arundell, A Rabble in Arms and the Battle of Cowpens never made it onto
film. Curiously Lydia Bailey set against the sweep of the Haitian Revolution and the
War with
Tripoli made it to the pictures in two separate films: Lydia Bailey and Tripoli.
The movie version Lydia Bailey approaches race relations against the backdrop of the violence
accompanying the rebellion in Haiti caused by the attack of the French Empire on the Haitian people
who would have been quite willing to join the French in liberty equality and fraternity voluntarily.
The Haitian War for Independence concerns racial issues Americans find difficulty confronting.
The movie Tripoli is poorly done and makes more of a mockery of that war than it already was.
The Young Republic scrounges for film titles with the Revolution.
The greatest film on the young republic is the Buccaneer starring Charleton Heston.
Buccaneer has an excellent battle scene which lasts on film slightly longer than the Great
Turkey Shoot at New Orleans.
The Young Republic comes to the fore in
Edward Evert Hale's classic short story
The Man Without a Country
about an officer sentenced to receive his wish:
never to hear of
The United States. The Man Without a Country
has been twice converted into movies. Neither
version is available on DVD.
The most prolific writer on the revolution was unquestionably Howard Fast who may not
have wound up in the slammer but boasts of having been blacklisted in the McCarthy era.
There certainly are underrcurrents of Fast's leftist ideology in The Unvanquished and Citizen Tom
Paine, but there is a bitter irony: without writers like Fast, there would never have been a John Wayne.
Two of Fast's works on the Revolution made it to the small screen: April Morning starring
Tommy Lee Jones and The Crossing. The Crossing is often used as a teaching tool on
the Revolution.
In the 1970s with the bicentemial year approaching John Jakes stormed onto the scene with his memorable Kent Family Chronicles,
a family saga. All the volumes in the series were best sellers.
The two earliest books in the series, The Bastard and The Rebels, deal with the Revolution and Revolutionary
agitation leading to Independence. Both the Bastard and The Rebels made the small screen in a TV
mini-series which enjoyed
a wide audience in the bicentenial year. Regretfully they have not been replayed often.
Despite the popularity of the Kent Family Chronicles in the bicentential era, Jakes is probably better known for North and South
his Civil War tales.
Jakes Kent Family Chronicles became a best seller, but there are many parallels
between the Disney classic Johnny Tremaine written by Esther Forbes and the character of
Philip Kent, the grand patriarch of a line he founded. Esther Forbes may have invented
a new genre by giving her character a physical disability he must overcome.
Yet he stands in the firing line with the best of them.
Johnny Tremaine is notable for its excellent rendition of period music. The Liberty Song
sung throughout is a version of the period song Heart of Oak.
The bicentenial year did bring out the cute musical 1776, often used as a teaching tool on the Revolution.
1776 is now on DVD at Barnes & Noble.com.
George Bernard Shaw took up the quill against the Crown in his marvelous comedy Devil's Disciple
which went to film with a cast of Sir Laurence Olivier, Kirk Douglas and Bert Lancaster.
Shaw's principal accomplishment in Devil's Disciple was a penetrating study of
the personalities of those whose world views collided.
In more recent years BBC made a new version starring Patrick Stewart
of Star Trek New Generation fame. Regrettably the newer
film with Patrick Stewart has never been re-released in America.
Mel Gibson's bravura performance in the Patriot renewed interest in the Great Saga.
Though the filn is criticized for graphic depiction of the violence in the War in the South,
Ben Martin (Mel Gibson) as a member of the Assembly in his arguments
against war and independence augured the destruction war would bring.
The violence in the Patriot has disuaded school districts from utilizing the film
as a teaching tool.
Where Mel Gibson succeded as the Patriot Al Pacino flopped in
Revolution.
Revolution is highly recommended for much attention to detail in
period music, clothing, flags and uniforms. Maybe the World didn't
turn upside down when the British surrendered to the tune of
Minstral Boy.
John Ford directed Drums Along the Mohawk based on a Walter Edmonds novel
about settlers in the Mohawk Valley. Downplaying British involvement in the war and
attributing all British atrocities to Tories, Ford avoided direct conflict at least with
the enemy's sensativities.
The enemy is advancing into the valley and the settlers huddle in the fort.
There is plenty of fighting. The piece is well filmed and thought through although
trickery and stealth rather than a great final battle won the day at Fort Stanwix.
Despite the many patriotic themes in John Ford's works, Ford seems to have overlooked
that the US flag was first unfurled in combat at Fort Stanwix. Ford does recount the
hardships borne by colonial women who cut their hair off to defend the ramparts at Fort
Stanwix.
Kelsey Grammar is more than a good listener when he took up the role of
George Washington in Matter of Honor. Aidan Quinn plays Benedict Arnold with a fatalism
worthy of a Shakespearian tragedean.
"Oh, what have I done!" moans Arnold.
The made for TV film compares favorably to Scarlet Coat the 1955 film dealing with
the Andre affair.
John Light played Major Andre with the same gentility as Michael Wilding in the older film.
Matter of Honor has a few minor historical errors including failure to record Andre's promotion
to major.
