i end up watch this whole ( very long ) movie because i be fascinate by the sheer stupidity and naivity of it . it seem difficult to believe that so many famous people ( anthony quinn and lawrence olivier and john gielguld and vittorio de sica and etc . ) would have willingly participate in this farce . but maybe in 1968 people really be so naive . the plot seem write by some confused latin american marxist priest with an agenda . there be a superpower conflict and the russian be actually the good guy and with the communist party general secretary be a nice and spiritual man and who and suddenly and after 20 year and see the light and feel compel to ease his bad conscience by release a prisoner priest from a siberian gulag . the priest then promptly become the pope by a series of coincidence . we be allow to see the secret vatican papal voting process which be portray in the most hillariously pious form you can possibly imagine . meanwhile and the communist in china achieve the usual socialist economic miracle of starve half of their country to death . to solve this minor hiccup on the relentless shin path towards communism they want to start a nuclear war ( in order to justly distribute the western capitalist rich to the poor worker of china ) . our good old comrade general secretary get a bit worried and call the pope just before his coronation to ask him to broker peace . they meet with the chinese leader comrade peng who look and act like a 15 year old boy . you will roll on the floor laugh about what people in 1968 think the chinese look like . comrade peng demand that the western capitalist must pay ( which be quite logical after all and do not capitalist always have to pay for the madness of the socialist . ) and and that the pope need to sacrifice something and too and for the common altruistic cause of equality and social justice . so when the pope get crown in rome and he pledge the entire wealth of the catholic church world wide to fee our poor chinese brother in christ . and thus he save the world from nuclear holocaust . apart from this and there be also some minor sub plot and which and ala and provide little to redeem this incredibly bad movie . i would give it three oscar for stupidity . by the way and anthony quinn look quite unlikely a a pope . he be much more plausible a zorba the greek .