Willie killing a thug in an alley, many changes were made. Some are cosmetic — Vitti appears as a blonde for most of the film, except for one sequence in which she actually dresses up like a real-life version of the comic strip character. Likewise, Stamp initially appears in a blond wig and subsequently reverts to his natural dark hair. Other changes are more profound. For example, as the film progresses, Willie and Modesty fall in love and decide to get married, proclaiming the same during a sudden musical production number that pops up during a lull in the action. This breaks a cardinal rule set out by O'Donnell when he created the characters: They would never have a romantic relationship; the writer stayed true to this edict right up to the end of the comic strip in 2001. The character of Sheikh Abu Tahir fills the function of Lob, Modesty's adoptee father and mentor, who gives her the name "Modesty Blaise". The Sheikh is otherwise an original character with no equivalent character in the source material. Other original characters include Paul Hagen, Mrs. Fothergill, McWhirter, and Nicole. Novelization Prior to the release of the film, O'Donnell novelised his version of the screenplay as a novel titled Modesty Blaise. This book was a critical and sales success, resulting in O'Donnell alternating between writing novels and writing the comic strip for the next 30 years. O'Donnell's version of the screenplay was also used as the basis for a late-1990s Modesty Blaise graphic novel published by DC Comics. Release According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $5,800,000 in rentals to break even and made $4,825,000, meaning it lost money. Critical reception Modesty Blaise was a moderate success at the time of its original release, Bosley Crowther, writing in The New York Times, characterised the film as "a weird film, all right. Maybe, if the whole thing were on a par with some of its flashier and wittier moments, or were up to its pictorial design, which is dazzling, it might be applauded as a first-rate satiric job." According to Crowther: "The scenery, a few pop-art settings and a gay, nonchalant musical score are indeed, about the only consistently amusing things about this whacky color film." Modesty Blaise was entered into the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or, but lost to A Man and a