Kino Lorber has released on Blu-ray MODESTY BLAISE, the 1966 super-spy satire from Fox, directed by that laugh-riot himself, Joseph Losey, and starring Monica Vitti, Terence Stamp, Dirk Bogarde, Harry Andrews, Michael Craig, Clive Revill, Alexander Knox, Rossella Falk, Scilla Gabel, and Tina Aumont. Very loosely based on Peter O’Donnell’s wildly popular comic strip, MODESTY BLAISE was purposefully conceived by producer Joseph Janni and Fox as a potential big-budget Bondian franchise. However, a badly miscast director and star stuck with a constantly fiddled-with script and a superficially flashy–but-ultimately-empty production failed to generate positive notices and box office. To be frank... MODESTY BLAISE hasn’t fared any better 50 years later, but fans of 1960s spy outings and of Losey and the main stars will still want to seek out this now largely forgotten A-list title. Kino’s 1920x1080p HD widescreen 1.85:1 transfer isn’t much of an improvement over previous DVD releases, while some solid extras, including a commentary track and interviews with screenwriter Evan Jones and other crew members, help put this Blu release into the double-dip category.

When English Secret Service’s “best man” (Robin Fox) is blown up in Amsterdam, British Minister (Alexander Knox, HOW I WON THE WAR) and Head of Service Sir Gerald Tarrant (Harry Andrews, THEATRE OF BLOOD) now need a thief to catch a thief: international adventuress Modesty Blaise (Monica Vitti, THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY). It seems someone wants to crab England’s oil concession deal with Middle East potentate Sheik Abu Tahir (Clive Revill, THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE) by swanning off with their $50,000,000 in diamonds payment. Independent, supremely confident, absolutely deadly Modesty is wooed by Tarrant, and agrees to help, but on her terms:if she’s lied to, or double-crossed, she’ll take the diamonds herself. Her other condition? She demands the aid of an old, trusted friend: Cockney man-of-action, Willie Garvin (Terence Stamp, SPIRITS OF THE DEAD). In Holland, Modesty reconnects with old flame and Tarrant’s second , Paul Hagen (Michael Craig, VAULT OF HORROR), while Willie taps previous hook-up Nicole (Tina Aumont, TORSO) both doing so in order to sniff out who’s working against the British. When arch nemesis/effete queen Gabriel (Dirk Bogarde, THE SERVANT) is revealed as the mastermind behind the proposed heist, and when Modesty discovers that Tarrant has lied in order to use the sexy spy and her sidekick as decoys, Modesty’s and Willie’s mission changes to one of profit, and payback.

Aside from Dirk Bogarde’s amusingly arch villain and some of the supporting cast, I didn’t have too many fond memories of MODESTY BLAISE when I wrote about it years ago for my Espionage Filmography book. Watching it now, I’m less inclined to be so antagonistic about the waste of matching such an interesting director as Losey with the potentially rich material of a 1960s spy spoof...but that doesn’t mean I’m now going to say the movie works, either. MODESTY BLAISE is a failure (a verdict given by everyone speaking on the bonuses included with this Kino Blu-ray), but like many high-expectation movies featuring heavyweight participants that somehow miss their marks by a mile, MODESTY BLAISE can, perversely, be reverse-enjoyed for its numerous miscalculations.

It was inevitable that a movie version of British writer Peter O’Donnell’s internationally published comic strip, Modesty Blaise (with illustrations by Jim Holdaway), would be produced, particularly as it was launched right around the time the first big-screen James Bond adventure, DR. NO, was breaking box office records in the U.K.. According to several sources, the strip was a hot property soon after its newspaper debut, with British Lion Films contracting writer/director Sidney Gilliat to craft a movie version starring Julie Christie and Michael Caine. In 1965, producer Joseph Janni bought the strip’s movie rights from Mim Scala (that producer wanted Barbara Steele and Michael Caine) for his clients Joseph Losey and Italian actress Monica Vitti. According to Michael Caine’s autobiography, his roommate, Terence Stamp, was offered Caine’s breakthrough role in ALFIE, too, but took MODESTY BLAISE instead (one assumes it was a swap for the actor friends...one that worked out spectacularly well for only one of them).

Expectations for a Modesty Blaise movie were high. O’Donnell wrote the first screenplay, and then turned it into a novel, publishing it a year before MODESTY BLAISE was released, a novel that sold extremely well while receiving good notices—excellent promotion for the upcoming movie (O’Donnell subsequently disavowed the movie version, since all of his script work had been jettisoned). British-based American director Joseph Losey was coming off a string of art house smashes such as THE CRIMINAL, EVA, and THE DAMNED, culminating in the one-two punch of the brilliant psychological drama, THE SERVANT, and the well-reviewed military courtroom drama, KING & COUNTRY, both starring Losey favorite, Dirk Bogarde. Relative newcomer Terence Stamp had become an international star with just two movies: 1962’s BILLY BUDD and 1965’s THE COLLECTOR, for which he won the Cannes Best Actor award. And headliner and Michelangelo Antonioni veteran Monica Vitti, a superstar in her native Italy and in European and American art house theaters (L’AVVENTURA, RED DESERT), was being touted as that rare combination of serious actress and sex symbol. All outward signs pointed to a potential big hit for Fox.

It didn’t work out that way. By almost all accounts from actors and crew members, MODESTY BLAISE was a chaotic, “troubled” production from day one, with Evan Jones’ (FUNERAL IN BERLIN, NIGHT WATCH) script being reworked daily, as the actors and the director became increasingly frustrated with each other (the general consensus: nobody but Losey thought the material was particularly funny). When MODESTY BLAISE was rolled out to American screens in the spring and summer of 1966, it had already been beaten to the spy spoof punch a few months earlier by Fox’s own critical and popular smash hit, OUR MAN FLINT, with James Coburn, and Columbia’s big money earner, THE SILENCERS, with Dean Martin as Matt Helm. Grosses for MODESTY BLAISE were relatively anemic, and the critics were non-plussed, with many perplexed as to what the hell Losey was doing directing this kind of material...and then directing it so badly.
Critics then and now single out MODESTY BLAISE’s Op Art stylings for praise (with some going so far as to say they’re enough to solely recommend the movie). The sets and cinematography appear striking at first, and the high level of coordination throughout the visual schematic is typical of Losey. However, you can’t continually impress a viewer with pretty pictures and unusual frames for a full two hours if there isn’t something ultimately backing them up (that may be MODESTY BLAISE’s biggest, most obvious fault: its ungodly length. 90 minutes tops for a soufflé like this). Closer examination of the sets and production values reveals, however, a rather cheapjack look that was typical of Fox’s mid-line, post-CLEOPATRA endeavors (it has nothing of the sleek, glossy, tactile, luxurious heft of a Ken Adams Bond production). A three million dollar budget was respectable in 1966, but considering how the disorganized, location-heavy production was fraught with last-minute script and set changes and additions, I suspect quite a bit of that budget never made it to the screen (instead of making sure the minutest details match up, like color-coordinating Gabriel’s yacht’s block and tackle for a two second shot...how about hiring a decent fight coordinator for your Bond spoof?).

Ignoring the movie’s quite lame opening, as Vitti nonsensically laughs as her computer spits out punch cards (that chintzy, plastic set wouldn’t have passed muster on TV’s STAR TREK) before Losey boringly apes Antonioni with his long tracking abstract architecture title shot, we do get a brilliant little sequence—Robin Fox blown up in Amsterdam—that seems to promise so much for MODESTY BLAISE. Shady characters including a mime and a magician exchange inexplicable/hilarious glances and unheard confidences as they dart in and out of a Red Light district alleyway, before Silvan produces a magician’s wand to a drum flourish, ending with a Looney Tunes-worthy blast that sends Fox sky-high and brings down an entire building. It’s a scene that perfectly encapsulates what you hope Losey is going to do with MODESTY BLAISE: illusion (of course there’s a mirror shot), trickery, impenetrable inside jokes, and cartoon violence within the apt supporting framework of a double and triple-dealing spy story.

Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there, with occasional upswings anytime Dirk Bogarde or Harry Andrews and Alexander Knox pop up. Many critics questioned whether Losey had the comedic temperament to do a project like MODESTY BLAISE in the first place (including his son and screenwriter on this disc’s bonus interviews). That argument seems manifested on the screen itself: MODESTY BLAISE is a jumble of ill-fitting comedic tones, from broad, mostly unfunny slapstick, to perverse violence (Rosella Falk strangling mime Joe Melia with her knees), to lame satire (Losey’s flat-footed musical interludes and that god awful Arab assault finale), all trying to find purchase, and all fighting against the movie’s spy structure. Why Losey didn’t stick with O’Donnell’s proven formula is anybody’s guess (he had a built-in audience with the critically-heralded strip—why throw that all out?), but it’s clear that Losey’s underlying tone is one of contempt for the material—a fatal flaw when doing a spoof (for example: Mel Brooks loved Westerns and old Universal horror movies, hence the stellar results with BLAZING SADDLES and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN).