GRGR 1,2 favorite image / Kipling period / phantasmagoria / Esme /

[Cometman]

my favorite image in 1,2 is the "great isosceles knife" cutting the
bananas in Bloat's nervous hand.  You'd think it'd be Pirate who'd be
nervous reaching in there, but he's got that commando Zen going for
him.

There's probably some trouble spot that was prominent in 1935 during
his "Kipling period" - but even without looking it up, it makes me
wonder how old of a man that Pirate is.  If he was still a schoolboy
for the sizzling night dream (coming, as it did, at the end of a dream
sequence about a competition; and using the police as a threat would be
unnecessary for him after his commando training), the 1935 reference
still makes him at least 30 something in 1944.  Also, his involvement
in the colonial military and apparent lack of bleeding-heart referents
in his thinking about it makes him immediately less sympathetic.

I fear I have totally cocked up the visualization of the
phantasmagoria.  The Pirate in the story is riding in the Lagonda; the
Pirate singing and skipping with the WC Fields cane is neither in the
car, nor part of the phantasmagoria, nor on the screen;  the Pirate in
the phantasmagoria is overhead; and the Pirate on screen is merely my
imputation - but what other movie would be showing during all this?

The soldier in "To Esme, With Love and Squalor" does seem to have the
same admixture of private (sensitive, courteous and mostly rather
admirable) emotions and public membership in a "whole sick crew" that
Pirate does.