Almost everything I know about Modesty Blaise comes from this exceedingly fun but obviously flawed flicker. Made at the height of the high-camp spy craze of the 1960's this offbeat little outing gives us a Modesty who is impossibly astute and more concerned with fashion than felons. Both Monica Vitti in the titular role and Terence Stamp in the role of her partner "Willie" look fabulous, two gorgeous people filmed at the apex of their appearance.
But endless costume changes and illogical humor cannot spare this movie. It fails because it doesn't make much sense and it fails to engage the viewer on even the most fundamental level in regard to its narrative. We learn early on that the happenings don't matter. We are here at this movie just to watch images splash across our eyes and if we can glean some hint of a plot from stitching those images together then bully for us. But the movie seems determined not to help.
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But if you give up on such things as suspense and intrigue, two elements of this kind of spy tale that usually are requisite then you can still have a good time with this movie. It's a lark, like the myriad Beatles movies of the era, it's not supposed to make sense really, but is merely movie parts which beguile us as they dash or saunter across the screen.
I said I don't know much if anything about Modesty Blaise other than this movie, and I suspect for fans of Modesty Blaise, that means I don't know much of anything at all.
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It's more Travesty than Modesty, but I have a fondness for that flavor of cinema, too. Of the genre, I'd suggest "Danger Diabolik" (1968), very stylish and psychedelic, adapting the Italian comics' costumed anti-hero (a high class crook really), produced by Dino De Laurentis, starring John Phillip Law, who played the Angel in Dino's other film out the same year, Barbarella. With Euro cult siren Marissa Mell and brilliant soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. To my mind, Mario Bava did a much better job with the same sort of material than Vadim did with Barbarella. Tarantino owned the rights to Modesty Blaise briefly and in order to retain the copyright he produced a prequel to the series called "My Name is Modesty" in the early 2000's. It's much truer to the character. There was also a TV movie in the 80's that Americanized the characters and wasted another opportunity by "fixing" it, the way you fix your cat.
ReplyDeleteI've long wanted to see "Danger Diabolik" but it has always eluded me. Thanks for the recommendation.
DeleteI concur with Russ that the movie Modesty is kind of a fun thing, but it's amazing that the script reproduces a lot of the first MB story from the comics and the novel, but does so everything through a glass crazily, so that even the parts that COULD make sense, don't make sense.
ReplyDeleteThe original comic and their novel adaptations are usually straight adventure with bits of quirky Brit humor.
The movie is fun, but a bit overcome with the camp humor which dominated the era.
DeletePeter O'Donnell's mentioned many times how he wrote the script for this movie, and only one line survived the many rewrites. Thus he wrote the first novel, which is presumably what the film would have been if it had been shot to his script.
ReplyDelete"Danger Diabolik" oughtn't elude you too much, it's on Youtube at the moment - happy viewing!
Bookmarked! Thanks!
DeleteThis film is to Modesty Blaise what the Casino Royale film in the sixties is to James Bond.
ReplyDeleteSounds about right to me.
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