Underplayed Gems

Modesty Blaise (1982)

Modesty Blaise poster
Directed by
Reza Badiyi
Genre
action, crime, drama, tv movie
Country
United States
Runtime
50 min
Rating
4.6 of 10 from 4 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This is a TV pilot from 1982. It follows a female crime fighter and her partner as they take on a mission. The characters are Americanized versions of the comic strip originals.

breezylightheartedstylishpacedaction-orienteddatedespionage-feelretro

What happens

Modesty Blaise was a 1982 American-produced one-hour television pilot produced for the ABC Network and based upon the comic strip Modesty Blaise, created by Peter O'Donnell. This was the second attempt at adapting the comic strip as a live-action production, following a 1966 film of the same title. It was written by Stephen Zito, directed by Reza Badigi, with Barney Rosenzweig as executive producer. The plot has a few elements taken from O'Donnell's first Modesty Blaise novel (which in turn had been a novelization of a practically unused screenplay that Peter O'Donnell had written for the first Modesty Blaise film) but is largely original. Whereas Modesty in the comic strip and novels was said to be of uncertain Eastern European ancestry (but adopted England as her homeland), and her companion Willie Garvin was a Cockney, the telefilm makes both characters American. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.