Modesty Blaise, a secret agent whose hair color, hair style, and mod clothing change at a snap of her fingers is being used by the British government as a decoy in an effort to thwart a diamond heist. She is being set up by the feds but is wise to the plot and calls in sidekick Willie Garvin and a few other friends to outsmart them. Meanwhile, at his island hideaway, Gabriel, the diamond thief has his own plans for Blaise and Garvin.
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Following the success of the Bond franchise, spy films were highly popular in the sixties, and Peter O'Donnell's popular comic strip "Modesty Blaise", which featured the adventures of a glamorous female secret agent, must have seemed like a natural subject for cinematic treatment. This film was the result. The basic plot is a simple one; Modesty is recruited by British Intelligence to foil a plan by gang of jewel thieves to intercept a shipment of diamonds to a Middle Eastern sheikh. The heroine is played by the Italian actress Monica Vitti in her first English-speaking role- something I have always regarded as an uninspired piece of casting because Vitti's spoken English was not particularly fluent, although she certainly had the looks for the part. O'Donnell's Modesty was always a brunette, but Vitti mostly plays her as a blonde, although her looks, costume hairstyle and hair colour seem to change at random. Male viewers might be disappointed to note that Vitti only spends a short time dressed in the skin-tight leather catsuit which is the hallmark of the Modesty Blaise of the strip cartoon. Some spy films of the era, such as "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", took a serious look at intelligence work, but the majority aimed to emulate the relatively light-hearted tone of the Bonds. Indeed, many aimed to go even further in this direction and treated their subject-matter in a comedic way. "Modesty Blaise" falls firmly into this category. Although the plot involves what in real life would be serious crimes, notably robbery and murder, the scriptwriter Evan Jones and the director Joseph Losey refuse to treat the story with any seriousness, instead aiming for something light, camp and at times verging on the surreal. Jones's script was, officially, based upon a story by O'Donnell, but he departed from it so radically that O'Donnell virtually disowned the movie. I felt that making the film in this way was a mistake. The Bond films, at their best, have always relied upon striking the right balance between tension and humour. This balance has occasionally been upset; some of the Roger Moore Bonds were too jokey and light-hearted, and the Timothy Dalton ones from the eighties tended to be too heavy-handed, but in the Sean Connery era of the sixties the film-makers generally got it right. The makers of "Modesty Blaise" get it very wrong indeed. There is no tension, and we never care about what happens to any of the characters. Moreover, "comedic" does not always equate to "humorous"; the script is supposed to be light-hearted but never produces any actual laughs. The result is a film which is supposed to be a comedy-thriller, but which might more accurately be regarded as a thriller which does not thrill and a comedy which fails to amuse. There are some well-known stars involved, such as Terence Stamp and Dirk Bogarde, but their talents just seem wasted. It is no surprise that "Modesty Blaise", unlike some of the Bond copycat franchises, such as the "Man from UNCLE" series, did not give rise to a single sequel. 3/10
Monica Vitti as Modesty Blaise has such a thick Italian accent and such minimal acting skills you're never sure if she's inviting you to her bed or telling you she wants another helping of spaghetti. Joseph Losey, the director, has attempted a comedy thriller along the lines of a Jane Bond knock off. All he and his screenwriter, Evan Jones, have managed to wring out of such a stale idea, stale even in 1966, is lead-foot comedy dialogue, mannered characters which must have embarrassed the actors who played them, and an awkward, ham-handed, swinging style. Not only is what are supposed to be amusing send-ups not, the pace of the movie is as flaccid as a month-old cucumber Thank goodness Modesty Blaise, as Peter O'Donnell gave her to us, first in his comic strip and then in his novels, is indestructible. She don't need no Joseph Losey or Monica Vitti to bring her to life...just O'Donnell's words and our own imagination. O'Donnell was asked to write a screenplay based on his popular comic strip character. He did, turned it over to Losey, and watched while the script was re-written, changed, neutered and nudged until he, and just about everyone else, conceded that the caricature of Modesty in the film had almost no resemblance to the smart, shrewd, tough, resourceful woman O'Donnell created. The movie was made and flopped. O'Donnell took his original script, rewrote it as a novel titled Modesty Blaise and the novel was a big success. Here we have Modesty in awful Sixties styles (and with an awful Sixties soundtrack) hired by British intelligence to foil a plot by the criminal mastermind, Gabriel (Dirk Bogarde, in a performance he probably regretted for the rest of his life). A huge sum in diamonds is in play to secure a middle-east oil deal. Gabriel plans to heist the ice. It will be Modesty and her faithful friend, Willie Garvin (Terence Stamp), against the swish, effete Gabriel and his band of vicious exaggerations, ranging from a mad accountant to a collection of pretty young men. Keep an eye out for Mrs. Fothergill, played by Rosella Falk. She's another lush plate of lasagna, one with thighs of steel and the habits of a psychopathic dominatrix. That's a lotta pasta. Gabriel rather cares for her. If you're as fond of Modesty as I am, watch this movie to see for yourself the depths to which some creative types fall while confusing their talent with talent. Losey even has Modesty and Willie sing a jaunty partnership song. Vitti and Stamp are not dubbed. They are stunningly awkward. So's the song. The movie is a misbegotten product from the casting to the writing to the direction. I'm giving this movie one star, not because I'm fond of the real Modesty, but because Losey and Jones, with their screenplay and direction, made such a long (nearly two hours), confused, unconvincing and joyless film. All will not be in vain, however, if you are intrigued by Peter O'Donnell's erotic, original and often violent creation. Start your love affair with Modesty by reading his first novel, Modesty Blaise. You'd have to be a dried, stale old prune not to want Modesty to come to your aid and comfort, with Willie Garvin, her knife-wielding platonic best friend, as back-up for the aid part.
Jean-Luc Godard's "Pierrot le fou" was in circulation about the same time as this Joseph Losey comedy, based on a comic book series featuring the sexy Modesty Blaise, a female version of James Bond, played in the movie by Monica Vitti.The visual parallels to "Pierrot le fou" are striking, and there should be a film scholar somewhere willing to figure out who influenced whom. It would be easy to say that Losey was slumming, that this is only "Godard for Dummies," but the filmcraft on display here is too accomplished to dismiss.What brought me to this obscure movie in the first place? Vincent Vega, as played by John Travolta, was the constipated-heroin-shooting hit-man in "Pulp Fiction" who always read a book on the toilet -- a novelization of "Modesty Blaise." Tarantino has always adored Godard (his production company is called A Band Apart), so I suspect Mr. T. senses a connection between this 60s mod 'trash' movie with Monica Vitti and the highbrow efforts of his Continental master, M. Godard.See it for yourself and decide.
Fox pinned hopes on 'Modesty' becoming a franchise to rival Bond, but these were cruelly dashed as Joseph Losey's film played to mostly empty theatres in the U.K. and U.S.A. ( it did rather better on the Continent ). Taken on its own terms, its not too bad. Jack Shampan's production design is superb, as is John Dankworth's music, there are a couple of decent performances ( Clive Revill, Harry Andrews, and a wonderfully camp turn from Dirk Bogarde ) and some good moments such as Modesty finding herself trapped in an op art cell. But as an adaptation of Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway's comic-strip, its a non-starter. Monica Vitti fails to project warmth and charm as Modesty, while Terence Stamp sounds like Michael Caine on an off-day. The scene where they sing a romantic duet whilst under fire is just painful. Losey was clearly not the right director for this project. Fox made a rather more successful 'girl power' Bond thriller a year later - 'Fathom', starring Raquel Welch.
