Monica Vitti stars as the title character--an international girl of adventure. The UK hires her to help them with some problem--though no one is exactly sure who or what is the threat. Periodically, the camera cuts to Dirk Bogarde with a goofy white superman wig. You assume he's the baddie....but none of this seems to make much sense. As I sit here and watch "Modesty Blaise", I find my attention waning-- mostly because this seems like a film made without a script. I keep watching and hoping that it will all make sense but sadly it does not. Instead of a comprehensible plot, you're left with nice costumes, lots of color and not much else. An incomprehensible mess of a film I wanted to like. After all, a female James Bond-like character is an idea with a lot of promise. Unfortunately, it just doesn't deliver and looks more like a film made completely by fashion designers, not filmmakers.

MODESTY BLAISE is another of those excruciatingly unfunny spy spoofs of the 1960s, similar in tone to CASINO ROYALE from the same decade. I have no idea why these were made, given that all of the spy movies I've watched from the era - Bond movies included - feature plenty of tongue-in-cheek as well as open comedy throughout. Anyway, this one's based on the popular comic strip character and involves our ditzy femme fatale heroine going after a crime boss, played by a white-haired Dirk Bogarde. There's plenty of goofy humour, which never really works, as well as familiar actors slumming it and sunny locations. A pity, then, that the script is so poor, and that they picked an actress for her looks rather than acting ability.

The British Secret Service recruits Modesty Blaise (Monica Vitti) a criminal to protect a shipment of diamonds heading to an arab sheik. Master criminal Gabriel (Dirk Bogarde),the head of a criminal organization is after the diamonds.

Modesty Blaise is certainly a departure for director Joseph Losey better known for more high brow dramas as well actor Dirk Bogarde who really camps it up here.

It is one of a slew of psychedelic James Bond satires that popped up in the swinging mid 1960s including Casino Royale which it shares some similarities with. A poor script that seems to be made up as it goes along even though Modesty Blaise is a comic strip character.

The film is bizarre, weird and boring. Vitti has no screen presence at all. Terence Stamp seems to be doing a bad Michael Caine impression, he even starts to sing at one point.