Joseph A. Golden (born Joseph Aron Goldstein; November 16, 1866 – January 3, 1935) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer and playwright. After beginning his career in the theater, he became one of the directors employed by the Biograph Company in 1907. He subsequently worked for several production companies and in 1914 acquired Ludwig Erb's interest in the Crystal Film Company, which operated a studio and film-processing laboratory in the Bronx. Golden directed Pearl White in some of her earliest films and later directed the serials Wolves of Kultur (1918), The Great Gamble (1919) and The Whirlwind (1920). He also wrote plays and vaudeville sketches, including three works with Will M. Cressy.
Early life and theater career
Golden was born Joseph Aron Goldstein in Washington, D.C., on November 16, 1866, one of the children of Simon Goldstein, a Russian-born jeweler, and Rosa Cohen. The 1880 census recorded him under the surname Goldstein in his parents' Washington household. Because District of Columbia birth certificates date only from August 1874, his birth is also supported by an affidavit accompanying his 1921 passport application. In it, a childhood friend stated that he had known Golden for more than 40 years and that Golden had been born in Washington around 1866.
Golden reportedly began his theatrical career in 1887 as an actor under Dion Boucicault. Before entering the theater, he worked as an engraver and designer and studied art for several years, continuing his studies after beginning his stage career. He subsequently worked as an actor, stage manager, stage director and playwright, and studied acting and pantomime. He also trained as a dramatic reader and later described the transition to silent films as requiring him to relinquish the practical advantages of his training in voice and recitation. He later worked as a stage manager for Charles Frohman and directed and managed stock companies. A 1909 profile stated that he had also worked under Wilfred Buckland, then associated with David Belasco. When visiting North Adams, Massachusetts, in 1933, Golden recalled companies he had brought to the city's theaters approximately 35 years earlier.
In addition to his theatrical work, Golden copyrighted a succession of one-act plays, dramatic sketches and vaudeville pieces beginning with Wenonah in 1907. In September of that year, he advertised himself as an experienced writer of vaudeville sketches. By April 1909, he was associated with the firm Brady and Golden in New York's Gaiety Theatre Building, which advertised vaudeville sketches that it wrote, staged and booked. The advertisement also identified Golden as collaborating with vaudeville writer Will M. Cressy. Three of Golden's copyrighted works that year—The Red Parrot, Dan Briggs, Sheriff and The O.K. Girl—were written with Cressy. Another sketch, copyrighted as Love by Wireless, was staged and advertised as Love via Wireless. Written with actress Cora Beach Turner and adapted from Robert W. Chambers’s story “Sybilla,” it received a contemporary review that praised its dialogue and situations while criticizing its staging and supporting company.
Golden's one-act drama The Countess Nadine was produced at Proctor's Fifth Avenue Theatre on September 9, 1912, with Blanche Walsh in the title role. Contemporary assessments were divided. The New York Dramatic Mirror praised Golden's ability to compress the drama into the limited running time of a vaudeville playlet, while Variety considered the work derivative of La Tosca and an inadequate vehicle for Walsh, although it praised the performances and production. Walsh continued performing the playlet through 1913, taking it from New York theaters onto the Orpheum circuit and appearing with it as far west as Los Angeles.
Film career
Biograph and early companies
Golden entered motion pictures in 1907, when the Biograph Company employed several directors following the departure of production head Frank J. Marion. The Biograph films attributed to Golden include Crayono, Dolls in Dreamland, The Hypnotist's Revenge, The Tired Tailor's Dream, The Deaf-Mutes' Ball and Terrible Ted. Crayono, Dolls in Dreamland and The Tired Tailor's Dream incorporated stop-motion animation. Golden was also credited with writing the scenario for the surviving 1908 Biograph short The Sculptor's Nightmare.
Golden later worked for David Horsley's Centaur Film Company and Nestor Film Company. In a 1914 recollection of early independent film production, Al Christie named Golden, Horsley, Milton J. Fahrney, Francis Ford, Harry Edwards and himself as members of an early producing unit. Christie identified Golden as its director, Horsley as its camera operator and manager of the negative department, and Fahrney as its leading man. The unit worked in a backyard studio in New York with a single interior set, which its members repeatedly redecorated to represent different rooms.
A 1909 Centaur advertisement claimed that Golden had written and staged more than 400 productions for Biograph. Later that month, The Moving Picture World published a corrective editorial stating that the claim had originated with Golden's press agent and rejecting the attribution of Biograph's success to any single employee. The journal nevertheless described Golden as a sketch writer and producer of more than ordinary ability.
Golden's professional association with cinematographer Ludwig G. B. Erb predated their work for Pat Powers. In November 1909, Golden, Erb and Emma Erb were listed as directors of the newly incorporated Erbograph Company. Capitalized at $5,000, the company was organized to deal in motion-picture films, supply performers and other talent, and lease theaters.
By 1910, Golden and Erb were working for the company organized by Powers. In April, the trade press described Golden as staging, writing and producing the Powers picture plays. He and Erb also worked on the first of a proposed series of synchronized-sound comedy and dramatic films made by Powers for the American Fotophone Company, with Erb responsible for the photography and Golden for the staging.
At Powers, Golden directed Pearl White in a number of her earliest pictures, including The Girl from Arizona and The Woman Hater. In her 1919 autobiography, White recalled that after unsuccessfully seeking work at the Edison and Kalem studios, she approached Powers, where Golden offered her a trial at five dollars a day. After she completed her first film in two days, the company engaged her at a salary of thirty dollars a week.
During 1911, Golden directed films for the Selig Polyscope Company. At Selig's Chicago plant, he was one of three producers, alongside Otis Turner and William V. Mong, who maintained private offices and planned and wrote their own scenarios. A contemporary account stated that each producer ordinarily completed at least one film a week and sometimes two. That summer he led a Selig location unit in Colorado whose members included Myrtle Stedman, Thomas J. Carrigan, William Duncan, Otis B. Thayer, Tom and Olive Mix, and George “Mexican George” Hooker. In August, with the company headquartered at American City, Golden staged a fictitious bank robbery in Central City for Why the Sheriff Is a Bachelor.
The following month, the unit relocated to Cañon City, where it used the Royal Gorge and Skyline Drive as locations and recruited local riders and horses for its Western productions. Golden’s other Selig work included The New Editor, Western Hearts and Told in Colorado.
Crystal Film Company and feature production
The Crystal Film Company of the Bronx was incorporated in Albany in August 1911 with capital of $150,000. In October, The Billboard reported that the company had taken offices in the German Savings Bank Building in Manhattan and identified Erb as its president and Golden as its vice-president. Golden had recently resigned as stage director for Selig to take charge of Crystal's studio. A later history additionally identifies Golden as the company's director.
An October 1912 account of a visit to Crystal's studio at Wendover and Park avenues in the Bronx described the responsibilities of its principals as divided between production under Golden and laboratory work under Erb. According to the account, Crystal had previously concentrated on handling work for outside producers but had begun releasing its own films, with plans to issue one split-reel comedy program each week.
Crystal produced an extensive series of one-reel comedies starring Pearl White between 1912 and 1914. Film historian Buck Rainey cataloged 135 advertised or released titles under the collective designation “Pearl White Crystal Comedies,” identifying Phillips Smalley as the series' primary director and Golden as a secondary director. Reports published in October 1912 documented Golden's practical involvement in Crystal's comedy production. One credited him with recognizing White's aptitude for comedy and casting her accordingly, while another identified him directing Chester Barnett in the Crystal comedy His Twin Brother.
Crystal also undertook educational, advertising and industrial cinematography. In 1912, Golden and Erb devised a series of filmed tests for the Pennsylvania Railroad intended to document the effects of heavily loaded trains on tracks and ties and the displacement of their centers of gravity while rounding curves.
Golden also had interests in motion-picture technology. In 1912, a patent for an improved film-feeding mechanism invented by Crystal cameraman John Urie was issued to Urie as assignor to Erb and Golden. The mechanism used sprockets mounted on a reciprocating frame to create intermittent film movement and was designed for use in either a camera or projector. Golden separately applied in 1911 for a camera patent of his own. His design moved the film continuously while a reciprocating lens followed it during exposure, eliminating the intermittent film-advancement mechanism used in conventional cameras. The patent was issued in 1914.
In 1912, The Moving Picture News credited Golden with producing and preparing the scenario adaptation for Resurrection, an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel starring Blanche Walsh, and praised his treatment of the story. When Walsh subsequently signed with Triumph, a 1915 report described Resurrection as having been made under Golden's direction and attributed their renewed collaboration partly to the success of the earlier production.
Golden collaborated with Edwin S. Porter on the 1913 feature The Count of Monte Cristo. Film historian Charles Musser wrote that Porter pursued a collaborative approach on the production, working with Golden, who had written scenarios and produced films at Biograph, Centaur and Nestor; Musser described the result as a Porter–Golden collaboration. A 1970 account described Golden as Porter's assistant and collaborator on the scenario, while crediting Porter with directing, photographing and editing the film.
In contemporary profiles, Golden repeatedly recalled making an earlier one-reel adaptation of Monte Cristo. He said that he wrote the scenario, designed the scenery, directed the actors, supplied the studio and arranged for development of the negative. Golden contrasted this production with the later Famous Players adaptation, which he described as seven reels. The surviving production record, however, identifies the Famous Players film as a five-reel feature.