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MODESTY BLAISE
Rating: 
UK. 1966.
Director – Joseph Losey, Screenplay – Evan Jones, Story – Peter O’Donnell, Based on the Novel and the Comic Book Created by Peter O’Donnell, Producer – Joseph Janni, Photography – Jack Hildyard, Music – John Dankworth, Production Design – Richard MacDonald. Production Company – 20th Century Fox.
Cast:
Monica Vitti (Modesty Blaise), Terence Stamp (Willie Garvin), Dirk Bogarde (Gabriel), Harry Andrews (Tarrant), Clive Revill (McWhirter), Rosella Falk (Mrs Fothergill), Michael Craig (Paul), John Karlsen (Oleg)
Plot: The British Secret Service recruit retired international jewel thief Modesty Blaise and her Cockney assistant Willie Garvin to foil plans to steal a shipment of diamonds. She agrees but the ensuing international caper pits her up against her old foe Gabriel.
Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise syndicated British newspaper comic-strip, which began in 1963 and continued until 2001, and subsequent series of novels (eleven published between 1965 and 1996, as well as two collections of short stories) were a popular attempt at creating a female equivalent of James Bond. The character was brought to the screen here at the height of James Bond mania and in a clear attempt to emulate the success of the Bond films. And sadly had it been done right Modesty Blaise could well have been a character that might even have rivalled Bond’s popularity – certainly Peter O’Donnell’s novels have bristling excitement that not unfavourably compares to Ian Fleming. Unfortunately the film Modesty Blaise is a disaster on almost every level.
Joseph Losey is a director that has a deserved reputation for films like The Go-Between (1971), The Servant (1963) and the science-fiction film The Damned (1961), but Modesty Blaise is surely the worst film Losey has ever made. [Although Boom! (1968) does come close]. Losey treats the material as something he must ridicule the whole way – in fact it is hard to point to any other filmed comic-book adaption that is made with such utter contempt for its source material. The entire film has been conceived as some sort of over-inflated pop spectacle (something that is not necessarily a bad idea – see Barbarella [1968]). A room where Monica Vitti is imprisoned is designed as a giant optical illusion; Dirk Bogarde drinks out of half-metre tall cocktail glasses with goldfish swimming inside; Vitti wears giant gold lame hoods and the like. Losey seems to have some peculiar obsession with hair colour – everybody in the film seems to change their hair colour several times through – Terence Stamp for no clear reason randomly alternates between an incredibly bad blonde dye job and black hair; Monica Vitti between blonde and brunette – at one point even within the space of a single scene; Dirk Bogarde has his hair dyed white blonde for the better part of the film and suddenly rips it off to reveal it as a wig near the end. Why is anybody’s guess. Losey at all points treats Modesty Blaise as farce – such as a car chase sequence that features Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp singing songs and eating ice-cream while cars run around in circles trailing smoke from coloured flares. And the climax throws ridicule to the wind, featuring a shootout with Vitti and Stamp singing about marriage and the shiek riding in as cavalry in Jeeps emitting coloured smoke. The plot follows the original comic-book story and O’Donnell’s first novel fairly closely but does the rather remarkable job of appearing totally incoherent while doing so.
Monica Vitti is badly miscast. The role of Modesty Blaise requires someone who can move with a lithe, dangerous grace while also suggesting an eminent desirability. Unfortunately Monica Vitti is blonde (for the most part) and comes with a thick Italian accent. She seems to spend almost the entire film lounging about and languidly pouting, giving the impression that she would rather be eating chocolates while being groomed. She suggests nothing of a bright thief who is two steps ahead of the game. And most of all she is utterly useless when it comes to the action scenes, which Joseph Losey appears to have directed without any interest in using stunt doubles. Terence Stamp fares little better than Vitti, making a rather unconvincing Cockney. Dirk Bogarde’s performance is truly amazing for the opportunity it allows him to come out of the closet and all but openly parade his real-life homosexuality.
Modesty Blaise was also made as a one-hour tv pilot in 1982 starring Ann Turkel as Modesty, although this never made it to a series. In recent years there have been rumours of a big-screen adaptation by Luc Besson, which would have starred Natasha Henstridge, and with Quentin Tarantino expressing an interest in the character. Modesty Blaise was resurrected in the low-budget My Name is Modesty (2003) starring Alexandra Staden.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1997
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