Talk:The Kremlin Letter

Way too long
The summary section is much, much too long. It should be a summary, not a full synopsis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.167.198.122 (talk) 23:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Way too long is right ... I'll have to read the whole darn thing to get a understanding what the heck is supposed to happen in this film. I've been always tolerant of long plots, but this is beyond the pale.  I say delete the whole thing (or place it in this TALK PAGE) and write a quick synopsis. This is bad. Luigibob (talk) 18:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Believe it or not, I've seen worse. :) If you want a brief synopsis, Allmovie can provide one to reference. Erik (talk &#124; contribs) 19:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If this were any other movie, I would agree with you all. But this is The Kremlin Letter, and a special case. The plot is incredibly complex, the succession of characters, events, turns and surprises is dizzying, relationships between plot elements extremely intricate, yet nothing is superfluous or out of place, and it's very hard to summarize all that without making the resultant summary meaningless. The Allmovie synopsis referred by Erik only tells what the movie is about in very general terms, but it gives no idea of how the plot develops and what that "hornet's nest of treason, double agents, murder, and betrayal" is all about - it's much, much more complex than a user can imagine just by reading that. I have just watched the movie (I had seen it a first time many years ago, but didn't remember much) and all those details are needed to understand the plot. In fact, this article's detailed synopsis was very helpful for me to understand a few points that I was unable to grasp just by watching it once (and I don't think I'm stupid). One could opt for a very generic description like that on Allmovie, but it wouldn't do the movie justice.


 * The point is, the reason why The Kremlin Letter has become a sort of cult movie is exactly how complex, yet well-tied its plot is. That complexity is not only a mere characteristic of this movie, but exactly what makes it outstanding and a study case, for good and for bad. It will be hard to justify to a reader in an encyclopedic way this movie's controversy and late prestige without giving him or her the means to understand why it is so. Therefore, I'm glad that the above discussion didn't lead to a shortening of the Plot section, and I hope it remains as it is. --UrsoBR (talk) 01:23, 1 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I do understand how some editors (and readers) would want to have a shorter synopsis, with a quicker rundown of the plot. Likewise, I still think, given the plot of this film is so deeply woven (even the director John Huston said more or less that faithfully bringing the book's plot to a feature film had been a put-off for some who saw it), there are readers who would be quite happy with a little more "help." Hence, I've put the longer synopsis, which I wrote years ago, into a new article, The Kremlin Letter (plot) and linked to it from the top of the plot section of this article, for readers who might want/like it. It's still only a straightforward plot rundown, but rather long. Hopefully, this will work for most editors and be a happiness for some readers, whilst not bogging down those who very understandably want a faster take, keeping in mind that WP:Wikipedia is not paper. As ever, input is welcome both here and on the talk page of the new sub-article. In the meantime, thanks for thinking on what I've done! Gwen Gale (talk) 06:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The long version was deleted, see Articles for deletion/The Kremlin Letter (plot). – Fayenatic  L ondon 22:21, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

done over
Much grown, with the reaction section wholly re-written and thoroughly sourced. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:43, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Gwen Gale
Text of Canby review you quoted is obviously defective. Breaks off in mid-sentence. Just looking at Times "page view" collection shows this. Please WP:AGF when other editors do research on subjects rather than speculate. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok. Could you please characterize the research you have done? Have you found a different or complete copy of the review, to support your assertion? I ask this because, if you have done, you've not cited it. Hence your comment would not be based on research but rather, your own interpretation and speculation (I only bring it up this way because you used the word).


 * At the very worst, I made a mistake, since the review indeed contains a string of question marks as described. Given this, where has there been a lack of good faith? Gwen Gale (talk) 01:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Proquest. Available through many libraries. You can view scans of the actual NYT pages. Canby's actual review is almost twice as long as the text you linked to; which is missing the last two columns. Incidentally, the Times didn't pay people to rekeyboard the text of the pre-computer newspapers into the archive database. It used OCR technology. A text breaking off suddenly, followed by a string of not alphanumeric characters, is a telltale that the OCR has malfunctioned. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:49, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying. A neutral comment as to the more complete archival source and the glitch would have been more than enough. All the best. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

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