HOLLYWOOD – Following the pictures of the Queen Sieg Heiling like a (Storm) trooper, the Studio Exec have unearthed evidence that famed film director and silent movie legend Charlie Chaplin was also a closet Nazi.
Charlie Chaplin took the movie world by storm with his lovable rogue the ‘tramp’ who charmed audiences with films such as The Kid, Gild Rush, City Lights and Modern Times. However, a series of photographs recently unearthed show the diminutive British comic wearing what looks like a facsimile of Nazi uniform and saluting in a Queen Elizabeth II approved fashion.
Film historian and expert Mark Cousins (no relation to the one with the annoying voice) talked the Studio Exec through the photograph:
What we can see here is Charlie Chaplin in a later part of his career. We know he had been targeted by the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover personally for his supposed communist allegiances, something for which he refused to apologize or deny, though he was never a member of the Communist Party. There is a chance however that the pressure was telling and this might have pushed him to attend some right wing rallies as a way of evening up the score. The photograph clearly shows Nazi inspired regalia and one can only assume that the modifications to the Swastika were to avoid legal complications and provide what is known today as plausible deniability.
Did his Nazism continue or was it simply a flirtation, like David Bowie?
Soon after the photograph was taken Chaplin left the United States and it was made known that his visa application to return would be turned down. He ended up in Switzerland, a notorious safe haven for Nazis, though whether or not this was a motivation we can’t know.
Charlie Chaplin was unavailable for comment.