Volume III: Biographies

GOODMAN, Daniel Carson

Scenario writer (1914-1915)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Daniel Carson Goodman, a freelance writer, prepared a series of scenarios for episodes in Zudora, the 1914-1915 Thanhouser serial.

Biographical Notes: Born in Chicago in 1881, Daniel Carson Goodman was educated at Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 1905 with a degree in medicine, followed by studies at the University of Heidelberg and postgraduate work in surgery at the University of Vienna, from which he received a diploma in 1908. Returning to St. Louis, he set up a medical practice and in 1914 engaged in research on cell division. His interest turned to writing, and he produced several novels, including Unclothed (1912), Travail (a 1915 serial story), and The Taker (1918). Most famous was Hagar Revelly, a 1913 novel which achieved much notoriety, especially when noted do-gooder Anthony Comstock characterized it as "immoral, lewd, lascivious, indecent and filthy," and dragged its publisher to court, which action resulted in an acquittal. As might be expected, Comstock's comments were utilized to good advantage in the publisher's advertising.

Goodman produced scenarios for several different film directors and companies and in later years was especially proud of his work for D.W. Griffith. In 1913 he was named by Charles J. Hite as a scenario advisor for the Mutual Film Corporation. For Thanhouser he wrote several scenarios and stories from which scenarios were adapted, most notably that for Thanhouser's second serial, the ill-fated Zudora, later retitled The Twenty Million Dollar Mystery (1914). His Zudora script ran into trouble and was panned by reviewers. Francis Worcester Doughty was called in to straighten it out. Doughty rewrote the script from Episode 11 onward.

A 1914 Sketch: The New Rochelle Pioneer, December 5, 1914, printed an adulatory sketch by John William Kellette, which credited Goodman with revolutionizing motion pictures. At the time, great expectations were held for Zudora, which thereafter quickly proved to be a disaster. However, on December 5th, the outlook was rosy: "If the price of admission to a moving picture theatre ever advances it will be due to the genius of such men as Daniel Carson Goodman, the creator of Zudora, the wonderful Thanhouser series-serial, who, at present, stands alone in his field as a modernist.

"Dr. Goodman is the creator of the modern realism that is found in the script of today, and the writer isn't detracting anything from the remarkable genius of David W. Griffith, because of the big things done in photoplay during the past few years, Dr. Goodman has been directly responsible, although some of the bigger things written by the master of the modern silent drama were directed by Mr. Griffith. One has but to recall The Escape; The Battle of Sexes; Imar, the Servitor; and Zudora, to realize that it was the genius of Goodman that made these releases possible. Until the entrance of Dr. Goodman into the field of the silent drama the public viewed the screen for the same old, hackneyed themes, and the price of admission remained in the nickel and dime class; but now all this is changed. Larger theatres have been built and prices advanced because a better class of people are following the pictures on the screen; there is more story told; it is presented in an absolutely new light, and entertainment is competing for the first time, with the output of the legitimate stage.

"And who is Goodman? The fact that he was the author of Hagar Revelly would be enough for the man of literary turn of mind, and it induced The Boston Transcript to say that 100 years from now Boston would be erecting a monument to the author of Hagar Revelly. But to the people who follow the film industry that is not enough. They want to know more of the creator of the realistic film of today. He is a scientist, first of all; a student of the mystic; he knows much that Egypt has forgotten and that the world never knew. He is a doctor of medicine and studied in Vienna for six years. And he saw that he could present through the camera and projection machine ideas and effects never before gained in the art.

"When he decided to show that 'there was something new under the sun' he was sent for by Mr. Griffith and offered to blaze the trail. He found Mr. Griffith waiting to follow, and together they gave the world The Battle of the Sexes and The Escape. Thanhouser, then producing Lloyd F. Lonergan's masterpiece, The Million Dollar Mystery, was forging to the front as the world's greatest producer of motion pictures, and Dr. Goodman was engaged by that corporation to write Zudora, a 40-reel modern, mystic drama, scientific in construction, to be released in 20 episodes, and it is said that Dr. Goodman is receiving $1,000 a week for 26 weeks to produce the scripts. This is believed to be the largest amount ever paid to a photoplay writer, D'Annunzio, the author of Cabiria, having received the hitherto top-notch figure - $12,000.

"And with the first release of Zudora, Dr. Goodman has set the mark high in expectation. If that is a criterion, the episodes to follow will unfold situations never before dreamed. It will bring to the screen education in scientific things - the use of liquid air; the mysticism of the crystal gazers; effect of light in inducing hypnosis; deduction as a science in unraveling crime greater than A. Conan Doyle endowed his immortal Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Goodman endows Zudora (Marguerite Snow) with keen detective instinct in unraveling the 20 intricate, baffling episodes that are to be found in his masterpiece, and creates in Hassam Ali (James Cruze) the weird Hindu mysticism possessed by the crystal-gazers and prophets, in an effort to baffle her. Mechanical effects never before attempted have been devised by Dr. Goodman to present the story in all its wonderful realism, and the series will prove an education to the uninitiated, presenting the 'mysticism' of the Orient in its true light for the first time. Dr. Goodman is a philosopher, inventor, scientist, and first of all the creator of the new school in modern 'movie' realism. As a man one finds him a good fellow to meet. He isn't offish nor affected as one would expect to find a man wrapped up in dreams, because he has learned the secret of 'mixing' in studio life."

His Later Life: Later, Goodman became engaged to Thanhouser's leading actress, Florence LaBadie, and was in a motoring accident with her in Ossining, New York, in 1917, from which she died two months later from injuries sustained. As her passenger, he suffered a broken leg and other injuries but soon recovered. At the time, Goodman made his home in Mount Vernon, New York, not far from New Rochelle.

In July 1915 the trade papers noted that he had signed a $60,000 contract with Lubin to write 12 feature films a year "dealing with domestic problems." Such 1915 films as The Silent Accuser and Think Mothers resulted, as did the 1916 Lubin films, The Gods of Fate, Souls in Bondage, Love's Toll, and Her Bleeding Heart. In 1919 the scenarios for the Triangle productions of The Mayor of Filbert and A Regular Fellow were his work. In 1920 he directed and wrote the scenario for the Pioneer film, Thoughtless Women.

In 1916 a trade journal gave Goodman's address as 14 Gramercy Park, New York City. At a later time he married Alma Rubens (1897-1931), a screen actress, from whom he subsequently became divorced. For two years in the early 1920s, Dr. Goodman was an officer at a salary of $1,000 per week, increased on January 1, 1925 to $1,250 per week, of the International Films Corporation and the Cosmopolitan Film Corporation, owned by the Hearst organization. In its March 4, 1925 issue, Variety announced that William Randolph Hearst had ended his film operations and had dismissed his staff. Goodman had been in the middle of negotiating a deal with Louis B. Mayer, who represented Metro-Goldwyn.

"Dr. Goodman would not admit his relations with Hearst had been severed," Variety went on to report. "He simply announced he was leaving for New York last Monday and would be gone for a three or four week vacation. It is understood, however, he is going there to negotiate a release for some pictures he is to make himself and that will probably be with the Metro-Goldwyn organization."

During this era he wrote and produced several films, including Has the World Gone Mad?, What's Wrong, The Daring Years, and Week-end Husbands. Later, he wrote or co-authored a number of stage plays, including A Man Among Women, On to Washington, Roof Overhead, Courtyard in the Reich, and According to Plan. Goodman's later novels included Fan Dance at Cockrow and They Came to See Dr. Arkady. In 1943 a book of his short stories, The Dead Come to Life, was published.

In the 1950s he lived in Flemington, New Jersey, at Revelly Farm. Following an illness of three weeks' duration, Daniel Carson Goodman died in Flemington on May 16, 1957. He was survived by his wife, Winifred, professionally known as Winifred Spear, who was assistant fashion editor at The New York Times, 1935-1943, and a stepson, Peter Wallace Meyers, of the Times sports department.

Thanhouser Filmography:

1914-1915 Serial: Zudora

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