1968,
crime,
faye dunaway,
michel legrand,
norman jewison,
oscar,
steve mcqueen
having just watched this for the first time in - oh - probably 20 years or more, I think I like it better than the remake (as is often the case). It's very much a movie of its time, but still works remarkably well - the chemistry between Dunaway and McQueen is glorious, and the movie is very stylish, albeit very 60s.
I also very much like the piano themes by Michel Legrand - but not the pretentious nonsense of the theme tune!
I must watch the remake again - it's on the shelf.
Amazon editorial review Millionaire businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is also a high-stakes thief; his latest caper is an elaborate heist at a Boston bank. Why does he do it? For the same reason he flies gliders, bets on golf strokes and races dune buggies: he needs the thrill to feel alive. Insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway) gets her own thrills by busting crooks, and she's got Crown in her cross hairs. Naturally, these two will get it on, because they have a lot in common: they're not people, they're walking clothes racks. (McQueen looks like he'd rather be in jeans than Crown's natty three-piece suits.)
The Thomas Crown Affair is a catalogue of 60s conventions, from its clipped editing style to its photographic trickery (the inventive Haskell Wexler behind the camera) to its mod design. You can almost sense director Norman Jewison deciding to "tell his story visually," like those newfangled European films; this would explain the long passages of Michel Legrand's lounge jazz ladled over endless montages of the pretty Dunaway and McQueen at play. (The opening-credits song, "Windmills of Your Mind," won an Oscar.) It's like a "What Kind of Man Reads Playboy?" ad come to life, and much more interesting as a cultural snapshot than a piece of storytelling.
--Robert Horton
