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Peter the First (Lenfilm) is a colossally bad imitation of Hollywood's super-colossal technique. It attempts to compress Tolstoy's story of the 36-year reign (1689-1725) of Peter the Great into ten reels, showing Peter as an anti-religious reformer, a groundbreaker for Stalin. The picture places boisterous emphasis on Peter's essential democracy, particularly his wiving of the Lithuanian commoner who later became Catherine I. Colossal capstone: Peter, toasting Russia's bright future, publicly bussing the bare bottom of Catherine's first-born child.

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True Confession (Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, John Barrymore; TIME, Dec....

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