" But the bartender replies that they have run out.The bookwormish chump Charles, meanwhile, is ignoring the rest of he passengers (with bottles of Pike""s Pale adorning the tables), engrossed in reading a book titledAre Snakes Necessary?, by Hugo Marzditz [another instance of phallic snake imagery].As commanding warden, Saito insists that all the men work without regard to rank:All men will work.Your officers will work beside you.This is only just.For it is they who betray you by surrender.Your shame is their dishonor.It is they who told you: ""Better o live like a coolie than die like a hero."" It is they who brought you here, not I.Therefore, they will join you in useful labor.That is all.Stoically and stubbornly, Nicholson keeps his men standing in the hot sun, rather than letting his officers work side-by-side in physical labor with the enlisted men.We have the stars."Plot SynopsisThe title credits appear above a background sketch/drawing of a great ocean liner.It is 4 pm and the setting is the home of he upper-class Boston family of the Vales, ruled by tyrannical Mrs.He even revealed some of his inner hostility toward her, when he bluntly old her: "Because with you I can""t get involved.