The Kremlin Letter

Introduction

Despite what you may think now, maybe with an air of nostalgia, spying during the Cold War was no glamorous job. Spies were often merciless in their jobs, they had to be as their captors were even more merciless. This side of the spy game is rarely shown on celluloid anymore, thanks in part to the likes of James Bond, but may make a slight comeback with the imminent remake of Le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

The film starts with a failed mission by Russian double agent Polakov to retrieve an important document, so important that he is paid a million dollars for success in this mission. Unfortunately he is captured by brutal KGB officer, Colonel Kosnov (Max Von Sydow), and threatened with harm to his family and wife, somehow manages to thwart Kosnov by committing suicide. A frustrated Kosnov then ties up loose end by ordering the execution of the captive mother and sister of his now dead prisoner, but spares the life of his beautiful wife Erika (Bibbi Andersson) and persuades her to marry him. Quite an impressive opening five minutes…

Switching to America, Captain Charles Rone (Patrick O'Neal) finds his Navy commission being resigned in front of him as he is recruited by the intelligence services. It turns out that his eidetic memory is required on a continuance of Polakov's original mission. It turns out that some numpty within the intelligence services wrote a letter without clearance, since delivered to the Kremlin, promising to aid Russia to destroy China's fledgling atomic weapon plants, should the Chinese ever manage to create atomic weapons. All hell has broken loose after Washington and London find out about this de facto declaration of war against China, but official agency action has led to nought.

The spymasters have therefore turned back to a pre-WWII arrangement of individual spies working for themselves and monetary rewards in an attempt to win back the letter. Old hand Ward (Richard Boone) and The Highwayman (Dean Jagger) bring in Rone and a few others to make up a rather ragtag team who will, via sadistic blackmail, find themselves conducting their mission in the very heart of Moscow and based in a KGB apartment.

So begins an arduous and treacherous journey through the shadowy streets and corridors of Communist Moscow, where no one and nothing is quite as it seems…

Audio

The soundtrack is a 2.0 Mono affair that is good enough. Director John Huston also doesn't bother with subtitles for spoken Russian, instead trying something a little different. His actors speak Russian and then mid delivery overdub this with their own lines in English, which for long scenes then segue into English dialogue completely. It's a little confusing at first, but it works and isn't too jarring. There are subtitles, but they're not used for everything, slightly annoyingly, so there is some Russian dialogue where you have no idea what is said.

Visual

Impressively the film has been remastered in high definition and is presented in its correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio, so you can now see this film exactly as the director intended. The visuals are also very sharp and well detailed, due in most part to the cinematography of Ted Scaife and the production design of Ted Haworth. I can't remember when I last saw forty year old film on DVD looking so good, so good in fact I had to check I wasn't watching a blu-ray/ The picture is quite spectacular with hardly any damage visible at all.

Overall

Based on an acclaimed novel by Noel Behn, based on his own experiences with the US Army Counterintelligence Corps, The Kremlin Letter is a rather brutal but level-headed look at espionage when the good guys and bad guys were more easily recognisable in terms of blocs or countries, but individually were almost always as bad as each other.

The Kremlin Letter pulls no punches, it shows the spy game to be a vicious occupation with betrayal and counter-betrayal prevalent, with bodies dropping on a regular basis. All the protagonists are shown in an equally good and bad light, nearly all performing actions that may get them closer to their goals, but are ultimately cynical and calculating. It's clear that those on all sides are prepared to use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals, whether via prostitution, drugs or straight forward assassination.

The cast is a rather magnificent one, with Orson Welles making a brief appearance as a high ranking Kremlin official with a penchant for embarrassing his inferior Kosnov by explaining his cruel methods in detail in front of both him and his new wife at a dinner party. Von Sydow and Andersson are rather good as the KGB Colonel trying to catch the spies and the wife who despises him and looking for a chance to escape. O'Neal is perfect as the young (not quite so young, given he was 43 when this was filmed) newcomer who introduces us to this world. All though are surpassed by the rather brilliant performance of Richard Boone, who may well knock everyone off guard with a rather loud and languid Texan drawl that is disarming but may also be hiding his true nature.

This is a slow paced film at nearly two hours in length and not for those who prefer their spies with plenty of gadgets. This is a very rewarding albeit convoluted and complicated film though that rewards those who stick with it and are able to keep up with all the twists. You should be warned though, even the ending has a bite to it, reminding us that in the world of counter espionage you can't just walk away scot-free...