The top hat belongs to a dignified man who enters a stuffy, but stately London Club - the Thackeray Club (founded 1864), where silence is to be strictly observed.The film begins in China: "At the turn-stiles of the East - The bund of a great Chinese treaty port." In the busy Chinese shopping district are young girls, a family, and "sky-larking American sailors.Artistic performances by a self-absorbed group of disguised, impersonating "ham" actors (who had been forbidden to perform an anti-Hitler play in their own theatre) took to their own ""stage"" (with clever tricks of the trade) to challenge, subvert, ridicule and mock the authoritarian political agenda of the Nazi regime and its main proponents.In another meeting with his officers in the ward-room of the ship [the scene foreshadowed the similar scene of his testimony in the court-martial trial], Queeg (with shot nerves) delivered a confessional entreaty (a semi-apology) to his men for their help and loyalty, but his request was greeted by stony silence:I know that some of you are perhaps a little afraid of me.Mischievous Henry (played by young George), ""Peck""s Bad Boy,"" pelts grocer Schults (Harry Jones) and an Irish cop (Roy T.