Modesty Blaise (1966)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Evan Jones
Directed by Joseph Losey
Starring Monica Vitti, Terence Stamp, Dirk Bogarde, and Harry Andrews

Features:

• English, French, and Spanish audio
  
• English and Spanish subtitles
  

Rating: NR, suitable for audiences 13+

Anamorphic: Yes, surprisingly enough.

My Advice: Pass.

For those too young to remember (including myself), there were, in fact, attempts to spoof the spy-movie genre long before Austin Powers first asked if he made us horny. Modesty Blaise brought a famous British comic strip character to the big screen in a parody of the then very popular (and relatively new) Bond films. Tragically, Blaise's transition from newsprint to widescreen is a rocky one at best, and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what a good spoof really is.

The story is as dirt-simple as most Bond flicks: the government hires Modesty (Vitti) to prevent some jewels from being stolen. Which makes sense, as she is herself quite the successful "liberator of oppressed valuables." Offering to wipe her record clean in return for this service, they turn her loose with her trusty sidekick Willie Garvin (Stamp, in a role I have to assume he leaves off his resumé) to go to work.

Some cheesy misadventures ensue, including lots of hackneyed clichés in dialogue that were tired even before the Bond franchise had really gotten up steam. And I kept waiting for them to make with the funny. I was still waiting when the credits rolled. Apparently, "funny" in the mid-60s required little more than the occasional exaggerated facial expression and one or two visual gags that the director could then beat to death mercilessly. In the case of this film, the one gag consisted entirely of Modesty's costume changing when she stepped behind a convenient shrubbery or drape, in a matter of seconds. Sometimes including her hair color. That's it. As funny as it gets. Actually, Stamp gets a few moments to be amusing as Blaise's ne'er-do-well gun-toting cohort, but they're tragically short moments, and way too far apart to redeem this stinker. There's also the evil mastermind Gabriel, being hounded throughout the film by his accountant, but that wears thin after about the second scene.

The DVD presentation is solid enough - the colors are as bright and gaudy as they were three decades ago, and the sound is of reasonably good quality. The fact that they bothered with anamorphic widescreen betrays what I suspect is a radical over-estimation at the popularity of the title. Unless everybody who likes the Powers movies is a big enough sucker to buy this disc simply because the cover blurb announces it as a "spy spoof," I suspect the production could have skipped the expense of anamorphic transfer.

If you're addicted to "mod," then this one might prove a decent curiosity, but I wouldn't recommend any level of commitment beyond a rental (and I'd try to use a coupon or catch it on a mid-week special). Otherwise, steer clear. I'd say the humor was dated, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't funny then, either.