''Modesty Blaise'' was a 1982 American-produced one-hour
television pilot
A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie) in United Kingdom and United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television netwo ...
comic strip
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
''
Modesty Blaise
''Modesty Blaise'' is a British comic strip featuring a fictional character of the same name, created by author Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway in 1963. The strip follows Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talen ...
'', created by
Peter O'Donnell
Peter O'Donnell (11 April 1920 – 3 May 2010) was an English writer of mysteries and of comic strips, best known as the creator of '' Modesty Blaise'', an action heroine/undercover trouble-shooter. He was also an award-winning gothic h ...
.
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
Barney Rosenzweig (born December 23, 1937) is an American television producer.
Biography
Rosenzweig was born to a Jewish family in Los Angeles''Modesty Blaise'' novel (which in turn had been a
novelization
A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book, or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent ...
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
Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by Londoners with working-class and lower middle class roots. The term ''Cockney'' is also used as a demonym for a person from the East End, ...
, the telefilm makes both characters American.
Plot
The plot, set in what appears to be Los Angeles, involves Modesty and Willie preventing the kidnap of a young girl who turns out to be a computer genius and has been working for Tarrant's agency. Although both Modesty and Willie's back stories are given as described by O'Donnell, no explanation is provided for their North American accents or presence in California. Tarrant, as an operative of an American secret service, naturally does not have his knighthood. The super-computer they have been developing has been stolen by Debbie Defarge to use to make a killing on the New York stock exchange. Willie's knife-throwing skills and Modesty's habit of ripping off the lower part of her dress when called to action are faithfully reproduced, as is much of the banter between Willie and Modesty, but in other ways, the characters bear little resemblance to O'Donnell's literary creations.
Another attempt to adapt the comic strip took place in 2003 with the release of '' My Name Is Modesty''.
Lewis Van Bergen
Lewis Van Bergen (November 9, 1938 – April 6, 2018) was an American actor, best known for his role as Jon Sable on the short-lived 1987 television series ''Sable''.
He was in the film ''Bugsy
''Bugsy'' is a 1991 American biographical ...
as Willie Garvin
*
Keene Curtis
Keene Holbrook Curtis (February 15, 1923 – October 13, 2002) was an American character actor.
Early life
Curtis was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to Polley Francella (née Holbrook), a teacher, and Ira Charles Curtis, a railway and civil-servi ...
Carolyn Seymour
Carolyn Seymour is an English actress, best known for portraying the role of Abby Grant in the BBC series ''Survivors (1975 TV series), Survivors'' (1975) and Queen Myrrah in the ''Gears of War (series), Gears of War'' franchise.
Career
She wa ...
as Debbie DeFarge
*
Charles Cioffi
Charles M. Cioffi (born October 31, 1935) is an American film and television actor best known as Lt. Matt Reardon in '' Get Christie Love!'' opposite co-star Teresa Graves.
Career
Born in New York City, he attended Michigan State University, ...
as Leo Bazin
*
Sarah Rush
Sarah Kathleen Rush is an American actress, best known in television for her work in the original ''Battlestar Galactica''. She narrated and starred in the 2005 documentary '' The Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania'', produced by Patricia He ...
The American group Sparks wrote and recorded the theme song "Modesty Blaise" for the pilot. After the cancellation of the proposed series, Sparks released the song in Europe under the amended title "Modesty Plays" in late 1982/early 1983. The song was later re-recorded and included on their 1986 album ''
Music That You Can Dance To
''Music That You Can Dance To'' is the fourteenth studio album by American Pop music, pop band Sparks (band), Sparks, released in September 1986 by MCA Records in the US and Consolidated Allied Records in the UK, two years after their previous ...
''.
The rest of the musical score was produced by Kevin Knelman.