What Is the Swastika Doing on the Cushion?
I have the MGM Movie Legends edition, which runs the full 89 minutes on DVD. About 83 minutes in, there is a scene where Ronald Colman's father is lying on a bed (presumably in the Worth home in Barba), and the cushion on the bed has a very clear Swastika on it. Now I don't know when the Nazi party adopted the Swastika, but I didn't think it was that early (1926 when the film came out, but the film depicts an earlier period still). So if the Swastika did not have that Nazi association for an American audience during that period, then, given it is not a particularly "American pioneer" sort of item, what was it doing there?
I know that the Swastika was an ancient symbol and was known at least to art-historians in Europe at the time, and therefore could have been brought by, say, German immigrants to America; but would it have migrated to the undeveloped desert of the American southwest in the early 1900s, and been found in the home of a man with the very English-sounding name of "Worth"?
Anyone have any thoughts?
By the way, this is a great movie! I only have it because I had to buy the Cooper MGM collection to get *The Real Glory*, but it is a magnificent film, beautifully photographed, and with very young and handsome leads (Colman, Cooper, and Banky). The plot is not brilliant, but it's good, and the characterization and acting are excellent.