MovieChat Forums > The Kremlin Letter (1970) Discussion > Baffled by some aspects

Baffled by some aspects

posted 9 years ago by Balibari
1 reply | jump to latest

Enjoyed it on many levels but I'm left with more unanswered questions than after pretty much any other movie!

1. Why did BA have to shack up with the petty thief, who was he?

2. What on earth was the charade with the masks and clicks? (This is asked in another thread.)

3. Why was Janis trying to get the prostitutes hooked on 'drugs'? In fact why was he anything to do with the brothel?

4. Several characters knew Stuyvedent and met Ward (Janis and Kosnov at least)... yet we're lead to believe they're one and the same person. Have I missed something here?

There are so many more little things but I'm sure a second viewing would clear most of them up. These are the things bugging me most!

[–] Mjollnir 8 years ago

OK, I'll try a couple:
2):

No one except Ward knew that Rone was under the mask, only that they were to have arranged meetings with 'The Grand Mute', who would be ingesting all the intelligence.

Each contact would have a prearranged number of total clicks and exchanges. This would vary from day to day. Presumably, these were assigned by Ward. In the movie, the example they showed was 18 clicks and three exchanges. That meant that the contact would show up and give a certain number of clicks, and The Grand Mute would respond with some number, also. It didn't matter how many each one did, but. . . there would only 18 total clicks, and three exchanges. If The Grand Mute screwed up the count, it would be assumed that it was an impostor, and he'd be on the receiving end of a bullet.

4):

It had been 10 years or more since anyone had seen Sturdevant in real life. Ward had mentioned that he had had a lot of plastic surgery ("post-war retread"), so his appearance had been considerably altered. Add to that the fact that most people thought he was dead, they might not put the pieces together.

You can find a copy of the book pretty easily. The movie follows it very closely, even down to a lot of the dialog. It also connects a few dots that either were not filmed, or just left out of the screenplay that help explain some things.