Performance

Modesty Blaise

0 upcoming performances in New York

Screening at MoMA, Joseph Losey’s 1966 *Modesty Blaise* reframes the spy picture as pop comedy, following a stylish rogue (Monica Vitti, in her first English-language role) and her partner Willie Garvin (Terence Stamp) as they square off against the criminal Gabriel (Dirk Bogarde). The film carries Johnny Dankworth’s score and a period theme song that places it firmly in mid-’60s screen culture. Its New York screening context matters: it reads as a document of how British cinema absorbed and mocked Bond-era glamour, with design often doing as much storytelling as plot.