Modesty Blaise

Patrick Willems3.5

I love that the assignment here was just “female James Bond” and the filmmakers decided to make a piece of cubist abstract art

Cate4.5

RIP Monica Vitti – I had to fire up Modesty Blaise for a tribute. Some tidbits below that I enjoyed from the commentary featurette based on interviews with the cast and crew:- Vitti and Bogarde were very close before they started shooting, having 'wonderful lunches' together. But as things started to sour onset, he would do impressions of her to Tony Forwood ("Monica Vee-tee is kind of petty, petty, pet-tee") news of which got back to her and he wound up having to send her beautiful floral arrangements to try to get back in her good graces – she never trusted him again.- Costar Clive Rivell (the Scottish accountant/sheikh) said that during shooting, Vitti became very jealous of the relationship between Bogarde and Losey. She felt like that Losey wasn't paying attention to her and would complain about it. Rivell also recounts that when he first arrived onset to talk about the movie, "Losey was kind of drunk on brandy and that old reptile (!!!!) Bogarde was there, and the two of them were in their shorthand. They were kind of exchanging glances and looks and I didn't know what was going on." - Losey teased that Dirk was so unathletic that they might need to use a stunt man for the scene where he walks up a hill.- Losey scripted and shot a topsy turvy scene where, "everything was completely mixed up: Dirk reverted to his Servant role and was polishing the bannisters in his uniform, Rosella Falk became a transvestite Monsignor... Harry Andrews became a queer hotel manager, etc. It was a wild, wild scene and a superb sequence, but they wouldn't let me put it in the film." - Vitti had been told by Antonioni not to allow herself to be shot from the side due to her roman nose, and argued with Losey extensively over his attempts to shoot her in profile.- Dirk Bogarde wrote a lot of his own dialogue (complaining of the script, "Joe, it's not funny"), including the champagne/bondage sequence at the end. - Evan Jones, frequent Losey scriptwriter, clashed with him over his disinterest in the plot, "if the point of the scene was the theft of a ruby, Losey would say, 'that doesn't matter – what matters is the wig or the tattoo'."- Terence Stamp, "I just walked around in a bunch of gay gear for about two hours... I really had no idea what we were doing... All Joe wanted was just for me to look like I did in Billy Budd... this was my problem. I was hired for my beauty, I wasn't hired for my acting chops. This was a movie about objectifying men and women in gorgeous locations." - Losey on Dirk in the role, "Dirk Bogarde collaborated with me on this – the name Gabriel was in the script, and out of Gabriel, we got the angel Gabriel idea, then Dirk can be very camp, encouraged by me... the white wig was his idea."- Losey stated he was trying to make something high camp and baroque, and was frustrated that his actors, excepting Bogarde and Falk, didn't get it, let alone the audience. (Thanks @rhiannon for the nudge about the kino commentary with David Del Valle and Armand Mastroianni being more than worth a listen!)

Erik [Auk]1.5

Ok I mean on some level you have to respect an editor that believes continuity between scenes or even between shots is actually completely optional in a movie.