The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I have put off seeing this on the small screen because I seemed to remember there being more of the multiple spilt screen editing than there actually is and that it wouldn't work on the domestic TV. Actually it is fine. I believe Hal Ashby was responsible for the innovative technique which is used sparingly but most effectively to pep up the credits and heist sequences. The film is enjoyable with decent performances from Steve McQueen (much improved since The Blob, which I saw recently and in which he seemed rather awkward) and Faye Dunaway, looking particularly lovely at this time. Otherwise, although the film is enjoyable, it is not particularly striking and the Windmills of your Mind song has not worn so well. There is perhaps too much racing about in the beach buggy and the ending seems a bit rushed, although we are just about ready.

The King of Cool, Steve McQueen, plays a wealthy businessman and thrill seeker who masterminds a bank heist for no other reason than personal gratification. Faye Dunaway plays an investigator who is able to connect him to the crime and falls in love with him over the course of her investigation.It's a slick, high gloss production with A list stars and a big time director in Norm Jewison. It's an engrossing plot with some intriguing police procedure, well played by McQueen and Dunaway. 1960s films always look great to me because of the filming technique used at the time, although you wouldn't necessarily be wrong if you said this one looks pretty dated. Our preoccupation with high technology was starting to show even in 1968. There are numerous scenes of big punchcard computers, electronically controlled typewriters and the like, all cutting edge stuff back then but pretty antique looking now. McQueen cruises around the beach in an orange dune buggy, an iconic 1960's image if there ever was one. While this movie has a pretty familiar crime drama at its core, there are some defects. The only reason McQueen gets implicated in the crime is Dunaway's wild guess that the mastermind shipped the money to Geneva in numbered bank accounts. The police don't have a smidgen of evidence that this actually happened, but he fits that profile, making numerous trips there shortly after the robbery. However, several others fit the profile as well, and she only focuses on McQueen because she finds him personally attractive, and her female instinct tells her that he's the one. As the movie goes on, they really don't get any hard evidence connecting McQueen to the crime. McQueen plays it close to the vest and implicates himself only by his silence and evasiveness on the subject- he never says he did or didn't do it. Only near the end does he tire of the cat and mouse game and tell Dunaway to call in and make a deal with the cops. That's the closest thing to an admission we get. The motivation behind the crime is a little uncertain and a little thin. Thomas Crown is a rich businessman who wouldn't seem to have any incentive to pull off this particular crime. He's a thrill seeker-piloting gliders, playing polo, etc., so we're invited to make the inference that this is just another way for him to get off. There's also a subtle suggestion that after his divorce life is empty, and maybe he doesn't care if he risks everything with this. They do set up Thomas Crown as a rich man who's got some disdain for other rich men, but there's no indication that he's punishing the bank for something, and he's got no problem risking his henchmen or the innocent public to pull off his bank robbery thrill. One man does get shot in the robbery, so although you like his character, you could easily argue that Thomas Crown is not a very sympathetic good guy and maybe actually a bad guy. Good guy or bad, McQueen gets the last laugh as another robbery takes place while he leaves Dunaway high and dry and escapes to rich man's paradise on a private plane.

Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is a successful businessman. He recruits men to pull off the perfect crime robbing a large bank. The police is getting nowhere with the investigation. They allow the insurance investigator into the case and Vicki Anderson (Faye Dunaway) immediately zeroes in on the debonair Thomas Crown.Director Norman Jewison is throwing all the cool stylings of the era at this movie. He has the coolest Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway is playing a sexy ice queen, and he's using all the cool visual style like the split screen. It is super cool, but there isn't much heat. The leads' cat and mouse games are just visual editing fun. Even their sexy scenes are just cute jazzy music, and interesting cuts. The action is pedestrian. The caper is uninspired. I'm sure McQueen had a ball hanging out with Dunaway, driving the dune buggy, and sipping champaign. At last, this may be a movie of its era that has become dated over the years. It needs more fun, and drama.

When a mystery man assembles a five man team to commit a bank robbery it is going to be difficult to catch him as none of them have seen his face and before the robbery none of them have seen each other. The Mystery man is millionaire Thomas Crown and he didn't mastermind a two million dollar robbery because he needed the cash he did it to see if he could. After the robbers get away there is little to suggest who they were; they were all dressed alike and it is the clothes that the witnesses remember. The police aren't happy to fail but the insurers are even less happy to have to pay out. They call in investigator Vicki Anderson who soon suspects Crown who is one of the five people to know the bank well enough and to have made several trips to Switzerland since the robbery. Of course she has no proof so sets about getting close to him; she tells him that she will get him but he doesn't seem too worried, if anything it just makes life more interesting for him. Eventually it looks as if she has got him but he just says that if he did it once he can do it again… This stylish caper movie is thoroughly amoral; the protagonist is a bank robber who just does it for the thrills, like so many other things he does and the person trying to stop him is quite happy to break the law to catch him… yet it is a lot of fun and the viewer is likely to find himself hoping he will get away with it. Steve McQueen, the epitome of cool, and Faye Dunaway do fine jobs in the lead roles and have a good chemistry; they even manage to make a game of chess erotic! As well as having a good story the film looks great; featuring multiply split scenes and fast cuts that work rather than confusing the viewer.