There are two films yoked together in The Kremlin Letter …: the film it was apparently meant to be, and the film it actually turns out to be. The situation is not extraordinary; what is extraordinary is that both are interesting, and both in their different ways equally characteristic of their creator. There is little doubt that the film John Huston set out to make may be read in the light of the little scene he gives himself near the beginning. He is the admiral called on to discharge Patrick O'Neal … from the U.S. Navy so that he can take his place in a complicated counter-espionage manoeuvre…. O'Neal is puzzled and unhappy; the admiral is coldly furious. He sees it, quite simply, as a dereliction of duty, a failure of loyalty and, worst of all, a wilful copping out of the group. O'Neal, as far as he is...