Martin Bradley
The blatant miscasting of both Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway is one reason why the heist movie "The Thomas Crown Affair" doesn't work for me. He's a high-class entrepenurial criminal and she's the insurance investigator who's on to him; they're like Ken and Barbie playing at being grown-ups. It was directed by Norman Jewison, hot from his success with "In the Heat of the Night" and this time he's aiming at cool. Dunaway and McQueen are cool alright but they are also all wrong. It's a clever picture that revels in its own cleverness, (and use of the split-screen), and it was a huge success but it's also not nearly as clever as it thinks it is.
sackville-77871
McQueen was totally miscast in this otherwise good film. He is inelegant, bouncy and fragmented. The famous chess scene would have been marvelously played by Lee Van Cleef who could use his face better than any actor in the sixties. He was also elegant, authoritative and would have played the part with more detachment & class. He would have been a perfect match for the gorgeous Faye Dunaway, a woman who could bring even the intense Van Cleef to the bedroom. Too bad they never worked together--what a match. Paul Burke was terrific and the camera work was excellent. The music, however, dated the film as did McQueen wearing those awful sneakers when he left the house at night. All told, McQueen was entirely too shallow to play a bored millionaire.
david-sarkies
Recently a movie was made called the Thomas Crown Affair. Obviously that movie was a remake of this movie. Remakes can be good at times, but in numerous cases the original film can be far superior. As I have not seen the remake, I cannot comment, but according to my sister (which I really don't hold that high when coming to movies), the remake has Rene Russo and Pierce Brosnan walking around naked for most of the time.This movie is focused around a billionaire named Thomas Crown. At the beginning of the movie is stages an excellently executed bank robbery and gets away with it. The people are contacted in rooms where they do not know who they are talking to, and then the rest of the time by phone. Nobody knows who is who, except for Crown, and all are paid from a Swiss Bank Account. The question is why does Crown, with all that money, want to rob a bank? It is easy – it is the adrenalin rush. Throughout the movie he is doing things, such as gliding, riding a dune buggy, and other such things. He doesn't need the money, and even if he doesn't get the money, he still has more than enough to hold up his end of the bargain.The police are stumped and the insurance agency is reluctant to hand over the money to the bank, so they call in one of their more controversial investigators to find out who did it, and she points out Thomas Crown. What this movie becomes is a psychological war between the investigator and Thomas Crown to force him to speak. She knows, and he knows that she knows, but he is very strong and is able to restrain from saying anything.The chess game they play emphasises the nature of the game that they are playing. She is using all of her sexuality to entrance him and force him to slip, but she has no concrete evidence and he is not revealing anything. Even though her seduction skills are good, and he falls to them, he is strong enough not to say anything.What makes this movie good is the psychological games that Crown and the investigator play. Somebody who doesn't understand the intense psychological battle of wills that occurs in this movie is going to be disappointed and find it boring. It is far from that because of the subtly of what goes on.
