In 1916, Robert Goldstein had begun work on a film titled “The Spirit of ’76,” about America’s struggle for independence. During the winter of 1918, he sat in jail awaiting trial under the Espionage Act for allegedly inciting mutiny in the U.S. military by showing the movie in Los Angeles, Calif.

Goldstein should have been able to see his future when in November 1917 the company that had financed the project attempted to get the confiscated copy back from the government, saying everything in the…