From Russia with Love: the Front or Back Half?

From my standpoint, the second act of FRWL begins with the dramatis personae on the Orient Express.

Now the first act is colorful and contains some good humor. But in a reversal from DN, it is in the second act where this film really gets rolling--so to speak. Things get very serious indeed. The tension is fairly crackling. I even like the much maligned boat chase and now traditional water-borne conclusion on Venice's Grand Canal.

The whole Orient Express is also my favorite section of the flick. Truly the most suspenseful section of the flick and one of the best of the series.

My only problem with the third act is one action scene too many. I could have done without the entire boat chase because unless you count Morzeny's death it's entirely inconsequential and I personally find it unexciting. You could easily jump from Kronsteen's execution straight to the hotel scene without missing much. Must have been Broccoli and Saltzman getting too happy with the increased budget.

Back half, the Orient Express scene is so memorable.

Back half.

If possible both. If forced, the first because it is tighter narratively and perfect setup in the most Cold War inspired locale of the series, whilst perfectly emulating Fleming for one of the only times in the series. And because the world of Bond comes to life in the personage of Kerim Bey. And because of next to OHMSS, this has the best title sequence in the series. And so on...
Young's direction is perfect and elegant throughout...until Grant's death. This is a problem in the novel and for the script the jump back to later events is instead transformed into a series of mini-chases that are themselves not entirely inspired. What is however is the realism of these attempts.
This is S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s last ditch "kill Bond" plan since Kronsteen's plotting has failed. So of course it will be simple and unending. 007 must reach Venice to find safe ground...or so he thinks.
Despite being shorter and without the luxury of being fully designed, the helicopter stalking has a good deal of the intensity lost in the crop duster scene in North by Northwest because the shots are fully real and were done without the assistance of plates, rear projection and obvious studio work. (Yes, I know, the rear projection of the helicopter burning is rather obvious.)

Bumping an old thread, because I had an idea to do a general thread of these to cover all Bond films, but seems PK already established it. 

Despite the excellent scenes on the Orient Express - and this is coming from someone who loves the boat chase too - I'm going to say the first half. It contains probably my favourite sequence of all in the Bond series - that being the gypsy camp sequence, and it sets up the excellent pay off in the second half. I can't disagree with hegottheboot's assessment of the first half so I'll let his words articulate my feelings.

That said, this is a firm favourite for good reason, so the idea of the first half being better than the second isn't measurable.