This film is currently a fragment of one scene showing Ivan interrogating a German spy whom he suspects of being a spy but hires for his bodyguard. Stalin ordered that the shot footage, of which was 20 minutes, was to be destroyed since it showed, like La conspiración de los boyardos (1946) that Ivan was a bloody tyrant and his methods were uncomfortably close to Stalin's own totalitarian practices. 4 minutes and 20 seconds of the scene remain. Footage of virgin Queen Elizabeth also remain, but those shots were not finished because there was an order not to use the head of the Film Union in a female role.