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

Majestically directed by Huston, stuffed with great performances including Richard Boon, John O'Shea, Nigel Green, and especially Max Von Sydow who is in compelling form. Bibi Andersson is a revelation, so full of tenderness, anger and despair.Full of engaging characters, unexpected scenes, and plenty of twists this is a neglected classic of the genre.It needs a proper DVD release with plenty of extras, before all those involved pass away (Bibi Andersson and Barbara Parkins are the only principals still with us) Despite being central to the plot Orson Wells has little more than a cameo. O'Shea is little known now but deserves a larger entry in the footnotes of the secret agent roll.

If you like machine-gun edited, absurd, comic-book nonsense like the Bourne trilogy, don't waste your time watching Kremlin Letter. It's a million light-years away compared to that kind of video-game spy flick. You have to watch every second of this film to know what's going on and use your brain to keep pace of the plot twists and turns. Richard Boone and Patrick O'Neil, two underrated actors who never gave a bad performance, are riveting and Barbara Parkins never looked more alluring. The Russian/English over dubbing has been criticized but I enjoyed the technique. I've never seen it used since. The chilling ending begged for a sequel that never happened.

This is a typical spy film, and very indicative of the sort of film that makes Orson Welles seem like a stuffed shirt.The plot is impossible to follow. Don't try to make sense of it. A letter must be found, but no one really seems to want to find it.The movie is more about actors relishing self indulgent roles. There is an all star cast wasted, with McGinnis ("The 49th Parallel"), Vallone ("The Secret Invasion"), and others unseen if you blink. There isn't any story, to be honest, just a script of colorful characters. This clearly should have been titled "Arsenic and old Spies".There is no logic involved when decisions are made by these "genius" types as to whom to kill and whom not to kill. The story thus looks completely contrived, and the command given at the end also makes absolutely no sense.