calvinnme This is a parody is based on a British comic strip, and the film came off as another one of the James Bond spoofs that littered the screen in the 1960's (The Matt Helm series, the Dr. Goldfoot series, etc).The movie is about superspy Modesty Blaise (Vitti), who can change her appearance just by snapping her fingers. She is hired by the British government to protect a shipment of diamonds, which international thief Gabriel (Bogarde) is after. Blaise only accepts the job if Willie Garvin (Stamp) is allowed to work with her. Film goes on its way from there.Script is infuriating because it misses opportunity after opportunity for satire. It assumes that just because Blaise is a woman superspy, that alone is hilarious. Vitti does her best, and sounds like a smoky voiced Garbo, but the script leaves her high and dry. She gets most of her laughs from intonation, sight gags, and the glint in her eyes. Stamp is on the sidelines, although his appearance changes at will also. Bogarde as Gabriel is the funniest person in the film, whether he's refusing an egg because it's overcooked or reminding a potential killer that it's rude to point.This one does have Bogarde, and Blaises' changes are spectacular, and so are the sets. There are setpieces that are homages to famous directors, which I found amusing. However, it just goes on too long for what little it is trying to do, there are too many dry spells without laughs, and Bogarde and company are off-screen for too long. Still worth a watch--maybe.

Robert J. Maxwell Not a word or an image is to be taken seriously. Not even when the sadistic chief villain, Dirk Bogarde, parodies an American general's phony speech about how, when "the widows and orphans" of the Vietnamese weep, "their tears are our tears." That's about as gruesome as it gets though.The rest is flighty and whimsical, something along the lines of "The Avengers," the British TV series popular at the time. The outfits are as outrageous as the set decoration and the fantastic plot.I don't know if the story is actually worth bothering with, but for what it's worth, Modesty Blaise (Monica Vitti) is a kind of freelance James Bond who is immensely wealthy. She and her sometimes colleague Terence Stamp are hired to protect a shipment of diamonds being sent to an Arab sheik in return for oil concessions. Bogarde is the man who intends to intercept and steal the payment. He lives like a Turkish pasha on a Mediterranean island that is all jutting rock, century plants, flaming blossoms, and castles with an op-art decor. Bogarde is an effete fellow given to snits of exasperation and always cooling himself with tiny, delicate fans. There are many adventures and one or two double crosses before the diamonds wind up in the hands of the sheik and Bogarde is tied down, spread-eagled on the desert sand, licking his dry lips under the blazing sun and begging for, "Champagne, champagne." Director Joseph Losey is best known as someone at home in dramas about Big Questions that are full of mystery and ambiguity. He, the plot, and the characters are equally mysterious and ambiguous here but these features are put to subtle comic use. None of the gags are out of the Marx Brothers' playbook.Well, few of them are. In the opening, we see a well-dressed Briton walk up to a tall brick row house in Amsterdam, extend his brolly, and push the doorbell. There is an enormous blast that not only atomizes the visitor but collapses the entire building so that the neat row of Dutch houses is left with an untidy gap of smoking rubble. When the dust begins to clear the impression left is that of a missing front tooth.More often the humor is subtle and sometimes hard to catch. Harry Andrews tells his superior, "Hehe. That's very sinister, uh, Minister." And there is an immediate cut when Bogarde's accountant notices with disgust that Bogarde's drink -- an electric blue liquid in a glass with a yard-long stem -- has a goldfish swimming in it.Or the humor, if that's what it is, can be lodged in shock. In the middle of a conversation, Stamp leaps to his feet, flings a dagger through an open window, and transfixes a pigeon in mid flight.Monica Vitti is exquisite. She's tan and lithe, always impeccably dressed, no matter how outrageous the outfit, no matter that no one can find a way to get her out of her tight black body stocking. She has the alien eyes of Barbra Streisand with a more modest splanchnocranium. Her Italianate voice verges on a husky croak like Claudia Cardinale's. No one has ever eaten a more sensuous apple, not even Eve. She can change her hair style from a foot-tall blond monstrosity out of Louis XVI to a shorter, dark, modern cut in the blink of an eye. Can you and I do that? No. Well -- I wouldn't want to, but you might.I remember seeing this in Honolulu while returning from a sojourn in a tiny village on an island in the Pacific that lacked the advantages of movies or television. It was overwhelming, as if I'd been instantly transported from a dungeon to a Disneyland for the eye and the mind. And the title song is a caprice that let's us in on the joke before we hear even the premise.

ArmsAndMan 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.

ingemar-4 This movie seems to be made with the sole purpose of hurting Peter O'Donnel and insulting his fans. The entire Modesty Blaise concept is completely ignored. O'Donnel is said to have cried when he saw it, and I can believe that.The choice of Monica Vitti as the heroine is disaster #1. The long, dark, strong and mysterious Modesty is played by an average blonde bimbo. It is as if Rick Moranis had been chosen to play James Bond in the very first Bond movie. It may have been somewhat amusing but no "Bond fever" would have resulted. Modesty Blaise is the perfect character for a female Bond. This movie wasted a golden opportunity.The next shock comes when we see the actors chosen as Gabriel and Garvin. The evil, short, slimy scumbag Gabriel is played by a long and handsome man, who could have done a decent Garvin. Garvin is played by someone who could have made a decent Gabriel. Was anyone thinking when doing the movie or were they simply busy wasting O'Donnel's concept?And the coffin is put firmly into the ground by the ending, where the script writer show that they understood so little of the relationship between the heroes that they had to point it out.The plot otherwise follows the book fairly well, but without the essential magic of the heroes, it is just another B-movie. To those who don't know Modesty, it may be somewhat charming due to its age. For us who do, it is painful to watch, knowing that it is the movie that blew all chances for a series of great Modesty movies.PS: Modesty Blaise fans should watch the new movie, from 2003. That's something entirely different.