Modesty Blaise (1966) revisited

When I first saw Joseph Losey’s 1966 Modesty Blaise movie fifteen years ago I had never read a Modesty Blaise novel and had never set eyes on a Modesty Blaise comic-strip. I was of course vaguely aware of her as a comic-strip character but I had no feelings whatsoever one way or the other about the character. Since then I have read several of the novels and quite a few of the comic-strip adventures and I am now a confirmed Modesty Blaise fan. Which means that my reactions to the movie might now be quite different.

The first thing to say is that the comic-strip character Modesty Blaise, as created by Peter O’Donnell in 1963, is most emphatically not a female James Bond. She bears no resemblance whatsoever to Bond. She is not British, she is not a professional spy, she is not in any way shape or form part of the British Establishment. She is a retired super-criminal. She feels no remorse for her very successful criminal career. She does not take orders from anybody. She does jobs for Scotland Yard and for the British intelligence services but she is strictly a freelancer.

She is in fact much closer to being a female Simon Templar. She belongs to the literary tradition of the lone wolf rogue hero. It’s also worth mentioning that the novels and comic-strips are fairly serious spy/crime adventures. They are not spoofs.

It should also be pointed out that Modesty is not English. She is a British subject by marriage but her ethnicity is a mystery, even to herself. She has blocked out all memories of her nightmarish childhood. Given what we learn about her background and give the way she looks in the comic strip we might hazard a guess that she is either Slavic or southern European. Casting an Italian actress in the role was in fact quite appropriate, and Monica Vitti’s accent is not inappropriate either. There are major problems with Miss Vitti’s casting, but her nationality is not one of them.

The plot is wildly incoherent. Losey threw away Peter O’Donnell’s screenplay. O’Donnell had the last laugh - he turned his screenplay into the first Modesty Blaise novel and had a huge success with it while Losey’s movie bombed. Having thrown away the original screenplay Losey then made constant alterations to the new version. It’s possible that Losey thought that having a script that made no sense would be inherently funny.

Such as it is, the plot involves 50 million pounds’ worth of diamonds which have to be delivered as a bribe from the British Government to an Arab oil sheikh. Someone is trying to steal the diamonds. The British intelligence services have achieved nothing save for getting their top agent killed and in desperation they turn to Modesty Blaise and her partner Willie Garvin (Terence Stamp).

The man trying to steal the diamonds is super-villain Gabriel (Dirk Bogarde), with whom Modesty has tangled before. Gabriel makes various attempts to get the diamonds while British Intelligence suspects that Modesty might try to steal them herself. That’s it for the plot.

Of course in 1966 when the movie was made Bond Fever was at its height and there was obviously going to be enormous pressure to transform Modesty into a female James Bond and to make the movie as much like a Bond film as possible.

Director Joseph Losey had other ideas. What exactly his ideas were is difficult to say. He clearly had no understanding of the spy genre or the Bond films or the eurospy movies that had started to appear around this time. It’s also obvious that he had zero interest in making a movie that had any genuine connection at all with the Modesty Blaise comic-strip. It’s as if he decided to satirise the Bond films without actually having seen any of them, and to satirise the comic-strip without ever having read it. To spoof something successfully you need to understand it, and preferably you need to love it.

The movie turned out to be a trainwreck, but it’s a morbidly fascinating trainwreck. Losey was going for a surreal Pop Art confection and his total unsuitability for this directing job perversely makes it more surreal and psychedelic. You don’t know what’s going to happen next because Losey had no idea what was going to happen next either.

There are some wonderful Op Art visuals. The sets manage to look groovy and psychedelic. Modesty’s clothes, hairstyle and even hair colour change without any explanation in the middle of scenes. Losey presumably thought this was incredibly funny and clever. It isn’t. It’s just weird. But the weird elements injected into the movie for no reason at all add to the movie’s perverse fascination.

Monica Vitti lacks the athleticism and energy that the role required but maybe that’s why Losey wanted her - to make the movie an anti-Modesty Blaise movie rather than a Modesty Blaise movie. Terence Stamp is equally miscast as Willie Garvin.

There are compensations. Dirk Bogarde’s outrageously arch and camp performance is delicious. Harry Andrews is excellent as Tarrant, the British Intelligence chief. Clive Revill is very funny as Gabriel’s miserly Scottish accountant McWhirter. Rossella Falk is both amusing and slightly unsettling as Gabriel’s sadistic henchwoman (as possibly lover) Mrs. Fothergill.

The action scenes are not particularly exciting.

On the plus side this is a visually stunning and outrageous movie in a delirious Swinging 60s way. It’s worth seeing just for the visual delights.

Despite its flaws this movie is very much worth seeing. There’s no other movie quite like it. A movie from an era when studios would take risks on wildly unconventional totally crazy movies, and Modesty Blaise captures so much of the craziness of the 60s, a craziness that was so much more fun than the craziness of today. It’s not a Modesty Blaise movie and it’s a deeply flawed movie but it’s flaws are what makes it weirdly fascinating. With those thoughts in mind it’s recommended.

I’ve reviewed several of O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise novels - Modesty Blaise, Sabre-Tooth, Last Day In Limbo and I, Lucifer. They’re very much worth reading. And I've reviewed the early Modesty Blaise comics (in the collection The Gabriel Set-Up) which are also excellent