I remember the Pope. He was Polish, but he wasn’t Józef Wojtyla. Not Pope John Paul II. This was a man named Kiril Pavlovich Lakota. He had been a political prisoner – Number 103592R – in a Soviet gulag. He was scooped up by the powers that be and sent on a mission, a mission to ascend the thrown of the Catholic Church and to then negotiate an end to the Cold War with China. What? You don’t remember that Pope? Well, he was in all the newspapers, magazines and movie trailers in 1968. And he looked an awful lot like Anthony Quinn.

“You gave me absolute power,” actor Quinn says as Pope Kiril, “You must submit to my use of it.” (more…)