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totalitarianism, since it targets tyranny and despotism in all forms. It was not possible to show this film during Stalin's rule. As a Red Army inspector, Mihail Romm (1901-1971) confiscated supplies from well-to-do peasants during the period from 1918 to 1921. He was reluctant to recall those events but drew on them when he made films about Lenin, such as the 1937 Ленин в Октябре ("Lenin in October") and the 1939 Ленине 1918 году ("Lenin in 1918"). Romm graduated from arts school; he was a sculptor and translator, well-versed in film theory. He began work for Sovkino/Mosfilm in 1931. He filmed the first "eastern," intended as a response to the American western. The famous actor innokenti Smoktunovski began his acting career in Romm's crime drama, Убийство на улице Данте ("Murder on Dante Street"). During the Khrushchev years, Romm was more interested in documentary film. After research in Nazi archives, he made "Ordinary Fascism." His final work, И все-таки я верю ("I Nevertheless Believe") was completed by Marlen Khutsiyev and Elem Klimov. While heading the Soviet film association, Romm played Queen Elizabeth in the third part of Sergei Eisenstein's Иван Грозный ("Ivan the Terrible"). As filming ended, an edict arrived from Moscow: "The head of the association cannot play a woman!"The material was destroyed but a few frames have survived.

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