MovieChat Forums > Knute Rockne All American (1940) Discussion > Swastika!

Swastika!

posted 18 years ago by daedalus1337
10 replies | jump to latest

At 1:17:00 (on the DVD that came out Tuesday, not sure about other release), someone's wearing a hat with what appears to be on a swastika on it towards the bottom of the screen. Anyone else catch this?

[–] MadTom 18 years ago

Yes, you're right.

This is obviously stock footage of a stadium crowd that could have come from anywhere. No way of ever knowing that the story was with that particular swastika. This movie was made in 1940 before the USA and Germany declared war on each other, so if this is a scene from an American crowd, there was nothing treasonous about it at the time.

[–] BlondeVixen 17 years ago

<This movie was made in 1940 before the USA and Germany declared war on each other, so if this is a scene from an American crowd, there was nothing treasonous about it at the time.>

Yeah, but the Nazis were already well in power & raising hell in Europe. Stories were already coming out about what Germany was becoming, so it may not have been treasonous, but it wasn't a good decision to display either.

[–] thomasrosales 17 years ago

Considering that the NAZI party didn't come into power in Germany till 1934 and Knute Rockne died in 1931... seems someone goofed during the filming.

[–] michael-anderson14 17 years ago

The Swastika is a design used before the Nazi's used it, I have seen it in old Navajo blankets. I think the Swastika fell out of popularity after the Nazi's swiped it as their symbol.

[–] ianprl 12 years ago

The swastika did not entirely fall out of use.

In the novel "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" James Michener has a maverick helicopter pilot, Mike Forney, wearing a green scarf with swastikas on it, for good luck.

In the film, Mike Forney, played by Mickey Rooney, wears a green scarf and I am pretty sure it had the swastikas. They are pretty small and not brought to the viewers attention, but they are there.

[–] OlLineRebel 15 years ago

As mentioned, the swastika has been around a LONG time, in different cultures. In medieval Europe (IIRC), it was considered a good-luck symbol. So it's very possible people were wearing it before then as a symbol of luck, or even just as a "nice design", including in factory-made designs.

[–] jellyree 13 years ago

I have not screened this, so I'll take your word for it.
But, years ago I asked about 20 people I worked with to draw a swastika.
19 of them drew it backward.
A backward swastika is NOT a swastika.

[–] gayspiritwarrior 13 years ago

The word "swastika" comes from Sanskrit for "well-being" or "lucky." The arms can go in either direction. The Nazi party adopted it and used the clockwise arms only. Unless you specify someone to draw the Nazi swastika, there is no backwards.

"The value of an idea has nothing to do with the honesty of the man expressing it."--Oscar Wilde

[–] jellyree 13 years ago

"The arms can go in either direction."

I learned something today, thanks!

[–] Lucia-Mele 9 years ago

The "swastika", aka "whirling logs", was used by several American Indian tribes, including the Navajo, for hundreds of years before the Nazis swiped it (i.e., "culturally appropriated" it) in 1933. The U.S. forbade its use after 1941, despite its sacred tribal origins here. Ironic, ennit?