paultighe-34406 Not terrible, this film has a number of twists, a complex plot and looks good even today.However, it is also burdened with a rather dull narrative of long in the tooth spies, doing things their way, in a free enterprise rootin tootin western in russia. Plus it has patrick oneill in some rather implausible love scenes with much younger women. It seems to exist in a world the director wishes to live in rather than a believable one.The ending is the best part. Devastatingly bleak

inspectors71 because part of me wants desperately to think of John Huston's The Kremlin Letter as something like brilliant.The other part of me suffered through a long, overly-complicated, and tedious chunk of Le Carre-ish dullness that made two hours seem like twenty.I'd like to put the argument to rest.What I did take away from TKL is that spying is beyond nasty, it's downright loathsome. Just imagine hooded American agents forcing a Russian intelligence officer to watch films of his 18 year old daughter being made love to by an older black woman.No insult here to 18 year olds, black women, or lesbians, but to seduce a young woman in order to blackmail her Soviet father--who probably thinks of black people in general as a couple rungs down the evolutionary ladder and lesbians as degenerates--is pretty darned ruthless. Throw in Max Von Sydow and Orson Welles treating enemies of the state as so much clay to be manipulated, then destroyed, Richard Boone as a heartless killer with a warm-hearted chuckle, Barbara Parkins and Bibi Andersson as hopelessly damaged women in the crossfire, and about another dozen pimps and whores and elegant homosexuals and hashish-smokers and you'll long for the happier days of the couple handcuffed together in The 39 Steps.There's a startling viciousness to The Kremlin Letter, and it isn't in the form of occasionally seeing a character beaten, sometimes to death, with the sides of hands. It's how sociopathic people become when they commit espionage. I left the movie feeling vaguely nauseated. The aforementioned blackmail, the tying off of a loose end with one character tearing open the clothing of a women, not to rape her but to terrorize her before he smashes her kidneys and crushes her windpipe, the look on Patrick O'Neal's face as he reads a note from a Soviet agent at the end of the movie--kill the seduced 18 year old, her mother, and so on and so forth, or I'll kill somebody you care about. It's no wonder spies get shot.

lexyladyjax An incredibly complicated plot requires one's full attention to comprehend this amazing film . It's full of human beings with all their human failings: greed, lust, terror, regret, rage and evil. The plot is thick with significant elements.It's possible this film was too innovative for its time. The dialogue was unusual: the actor begins in Russian is dubbed over in their own voice into English. The finger-snapping code of the agents is peculiar and jarring. The sole gadget in the entire film is a listening device in a curtain rail. The photographic style also has a flavour of documentary style, and lacks glamour in its gritty style. One imagines this as a realistic portrayal of post WWII espionage: less dependence on technology, and more on people. It took three viewings before the connections became apparent to this viewer. It's possible that unsophisticated 1970 audiences expecting another Jame Bond flick were unprepared for such a brilliant tour de force.The film is worth watching for the dynamic performance from Richard Boone alone. He never puts a foot wrong as the folksy mentor of the new spy. The post WWII generation breaking in a new spy is hyper-realistic. Only the extreme torture is left to the imagination. It's no wonder the audience of 1970 was unable to take in this brilliant film. See it now for its star-studded performances. Richard Boone's acting, as always, is a treat in store. He never disappoints.There's a pervasive homosexual undertone for many of the main characters. It is certainly there for the discerning viewer. This, too, could have had an effect on audiences and critics of 41 years ago when homophobia was omnipresent. This may be the sole role in his life in which Richard Boone portrayed a homosexual. Watch for the subtle hint in the distribution of the two-bedroom apartment's sleeping arrangements.

Robert D. Ruplenas I caught this on one of the cable channels and was blown away by the cast lineup - Max von Sydow, Richard Boone, George Sanders, Dean Jagger, and - mirabile dictu - Orson Welles. What could go wrong, says I, in a Cold War intrigue drama with such a lineup, and directed by John Huston (who puts in a cameo)? As it turns out, plenty. I wondered why I had never heard of this flick, and after watching it, I realized why. The plot is incomprehensible, involving a mysterious letter that must be retrieved. It turns out that this letter, which we learn of at the beginning of the movie, is nothing more than what Hitchcock called a "McGuffin," an undefined object which gives the director an excuse to strut his stuff. In this case the "stuff" is a beautifully filmed exercise in obfuscation. It is never clear at any point who is doing what to whom. Huston got Welles to play a role, but he phones in his part in the pompous way of his later years. After a couple of hours of confusion, the ending, rather than giving us any closure (heaven forfend that a viewer might ask for closure), merely prolongs the incomprehensible. In sum, a confusing, overwrought, pretentious mess. The only upside is that it is beautifully shot. I wish I could also say that it's a pleasure to watch, but good cinematography only takes you so far. The frustration of the confusing plot kills everything. Skip it.