This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

How sad is this?

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Aceptable fumetti adaptation to big screen with the great casting to support this comic robbery plot,Monica Vitti is quite convincing as Modesty Blaise sexy and beauty,Terence Stamp is just pretty face and didn't add too much....but Dirk Bogarde play yourself through the movie and didn't need to strive...a nice surprise comes with unexpected Clive Revill on a double character both amusing deserves a best reviews,the kitsch style and pop score is quite appropriate for movie's purpose...Monica could be more hot,she had what to delivery....Resume: First watch: 1996 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 6.5

Mediocre adaptation based on character of Modesty Blaise who was created in 1963 by Peter O'Donnell , realized in 60 pop-arty style and far from original image . A two-fisted babe spy (embodied by attractive Monica Vitti in his first English language role) , the world's most lethal female secret agent , and her colleague , the dark-haired , brawn Willie Garvin (the British Terence Stamp) confront a dangerous international delinquent usually wielding his endless collection of parasols and perfumed wig named Gabriel (Dick Bogarde) and aided by his right-hand (Clive Revill as twitching Scots helper) . The tough secret agent is watching out for a diamond shipment , which is the target of her arch-rival enemy . Colorful but failed rendition , not taking any situation seriously ; being based on famous strip-cartoon thriller by Peter O'Donnell who retired himself and Modesty Blaise in 2001 . However , Peter O'Donnell complained that of his original screenplay, only one line remains . This very campy picture contains thrills , action , phantasmagoria , tongue-in-cheek , absurd situations , but being badly developed . The main and support cast -with everyone having fun- is frankly good , but is really wasted . Monica Vitti as tough British spy, the world's deadliest and most dazzlingly female agent, is miscast and is hardly ideal actress in the title character . Joseph Losey found it difficult to work with Monica Vitti, as she would invariably be accompanied onto the set by director Michelangelo Antonioni, in whose films she had become famous ; Antonioni would often whisper suggestions to her, and she would take direction from him rather than Losey. The best of the interpretations results to be Dick Bogarde as a cunning villain , including some enjoyable moments as when he is staked out in the desert and he croaks : I'm thirsty , Champagne . Furthermore , a sympathetic Clive Revill and Rosselle Falk as as a villainess who cruelly murders his victims . And special appearance of notorious British secondaries such as Harry Andrews , Alexander Knox and James Craig . This movie was one of four 20th Century Fox pictures featuring female spies that were released during 1966-1967 , the movies were Fathom (1967), Caprice (1967) and Come Spy with Me (1967)There is another version about this character titled ¨My Name Is Modesty: A Modesty Blaise Adventure¨ , 2004 , by Scott Spiegel with Alexandra Staden as Modesty Blaise , Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau and Raymond Cruz ; it was produced as a prequel to the popular spy comic strip, plans call for this film to be followed by more Blaise movies taking place during the timeframe of the comic strip . In addition , a TV version : Modesty Blaise (1982) by Reza Badiyi with Ann Turkel as Modesty Blaise and Lewis Van Bergen as Willie Garvin .Atmospheric original music by John Dankworth including a catching leitmotif . Gliimmer as well as glamorous cinematography by Jack Hildyard . The motion picture was middling directed by Joseph Losey . Director Losey was originally compelled to release movies under pseudonym Victor Hansbury because he had blacklisted by Hollywood where he shot The boy with the green hair , Prowler, Sleeping tiger, among others , during the 50s red scare . Losey exiled England where directed good films as The servant , King and Country , Accident , Romantic Englishwoman and other European countries as France where filmed Mr Klein at his best .

Joseph LOSEY directed MODESTY BLAISE, not John Schlesinger.This is to correct Alan Mount's following comment. Mr. Mount is entitled to dislike the film but it's fair to ask that he get the director correct.Mr. Mount wrote:"Director John Schlesinger seemed to use the movie totally as a showcase for his friend Dirk Bogarde whose performance is irritating in the extreme. If Modesty Blaise is to be resurrected as a movie heroine in the future a director with a genuine flair for action is required.This was not Schlesinger's forte at all."Given his comment, Mr. Mount seems to consider Modesty Blaise an "action film." I don't completely agree with that, but I might if he would be so kind as to elaborate on what he found lacking in the action in the film or how it was handled. Or better yet, why he considers it in main an "action" film? Since he would have preferred a director with a "genuine flair for action," what then should such a director have done with the film? Thanks.

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.