Joe Stalin, Cinema Fiend

Joe Stalin, Cinema Fiend -- Stalin loved movies. He loved Tarzan pictures. He also liked American Westerns, digging on the lone hero archetypes and the harsh and arbritary nature of frontier justice. He also wanted to kill John Wayne. He also told Sergei Eisenstein how to make films. While Eisenstein was making Ivan the Terrible, Stalin offered this insight: "Ivan was very cruel. You can show he was cruel. But you must show why he needed to be cruel." He was also a prude. He hated outward signs of affection in movies, and once, outraged and apparently apoplectic after witnessing one long, slow, soulful kiss on the big screen, he forbade any kissing in any Soviet picture.