leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (06/14/85)
TRAVESTY BLAISE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
I while back I reveiewed the book MODESTY BLAISE by Peter O'Donnell. I
am sitting here watching the film adaptation, directed by no less respected
a talent than Joseph Losey, the powerful director of THE PROWLER, THE
SERVANT, and ACCIDENT. I haven't seen those respected films, but I can tell
he is a powerful director by the mayhem he is able to commit on this story.
To begin with, there is Modesty herself, in the book razor-sharp,
practical, independent, cat-like. Take what Emma Peel had and multiply it
by two. That's Modesty. Now take Losey's Modesty. Monica Vitti is just
the opposite sort of woman: clumsy as a horse in high heels, wearing all
sorts of stupid-looking fashions and far too much make-up. She talks like
she has the intellect of a hamster when she isn't giggling, which she does
incessantly. She seems a complete bubble-headed incompetent. The script's
contriving that she knows a few facts at the right instant--seemingly quite
out of character--is the only concession to the original character's
intellect that Losey makes. The fight scenes are hilarious. She has
absolutely no physical control, yet villains walk into her knives. In the
book, Modesty has a completely platonic relation with her cohort, Willie
Garvin. It is the under-current of sexual tension they cover up that gives
their relationship character. Losey comes right out and makes them lovers,
and in the heat of battle they sing love songs to each other!
Gabriel--a master criminal in the book--is effete and fatuous in the
film. His real ambition, other than eating dainty foods is to disprove his
mother's view that he is a mamma's boy. He flits around with a pink parasol
and scolds the hired help.
I do not know what Losey was trying to do with this film. If his
casting so totally against type, his infantile humor (an extreme form of
camp), and his self-indulgence were meant to be saying something, they
didn't. Somehow, I think he thought they would make this an art film. It
isn't. This is easily as bad a film adaptation as any of the Dean Martin
"Matt Helm" films. It is considerably worse as an adaptation than DUNE.
Rate this trash -3 on the -4 to +4 scale. It has been a good long time
since I last saw a film this bad.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper