The Thomas Crown Affair is a 1968 movie by Norman Jewison starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. It was nominated for two Academy Awards and won the Award for Best Song with "Windmills of Your Mind". A remake was released in 1999.
Plot
Thomas Crown, a millionaire businessman and sportsman, pulls off a perfect crime by having five men rob a Boston bank and dump the money -- approximately $2.6 million -- in a cemetery's trash can. Crown retrieves the money later and deposits it at a bank in Geneva.
Vicki Anderson, an independent insurance investigator, is contracted to investigate the heist. She will receive a percentage of the stolen money if she recovers it.
Crown doesn't need the money but is in need of diversions. He plays polo and golf, flies a glider and drives dune-buggies, but is generally bored and welcomes Vicki Anderson's sudden interest in him.
She begins seeing Crown socially, openly admitting she is investigating him. Their relationship evolves into an affair. But it is complicated by Vicki's vow to find the money and help Detective Eddie Malone bring the guilty party to justice.
A reward offer entices the wife of the bank robbery's getaway driver, Erwin, to "fink" on him. Vicki finds out that he was hired by a man he never saw. She tries putting Erwin in the same room as Crown, but there is no hint of recognition on either one's part. Vicki is clearly closing in, though.
Crown decides to organize another robbery exactly like the first one, simply to test Vicki's feelings for him. He asks her to join him afterwards, but she instead betrays him. Moving in with the cops at the cemetery to make the arrest, she finds Crown has sent a messenger in his place with a salutation. Crown is then shown flying away in a jet, a smile on his face.
Cast
Production
The use of split screens to show simultaneous actions was inspired by the breakthrough film In the Labyrinth.[1]
The film also features the now famous chess scene. McQueen and Dunaway play a game of chess, silently flirting with each other, caressing the chess pieces, using them as metaphorical sexual objects.
The photography is unusual for a main-stream Hollywood film, using a split-screen mode in a very stylish way. McQueen does his own stunts (plays polo) and drives a dune buggy at high speed on the Massachusetts coastline. This is similar to his starring role in the movie Bullitt, released a few months afterward, in which he drives a Ford Mustang through San Francisco at more than 100 mph.
Sean Connery had been the original choice for the title role but declined—a decision he later regretted.
Filming locations
The movie was filmed primarily on location in Boston and surrounding areas in Massachusetts and New Hampshire:
- The Second Harrison Gray Otis House at 85 Mt. Vernon St. on Beacon Hill, designed by Massachusetts State House architect Charles Bulfinch in 1800, was Thomas Crown's residence.
- The robberies occurred in what was then the National Shawmut Bank (fictitiously renamed Boston Mercantile Bank for the film), 55 Congress St., Boston.
- The money-dumpings were shot in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge.
- The polo sequences were filmed at the Myopia Hunt Club, 435 Bay Road, South Hamilton.
- The golf sequences were filmed at the Belmont Country Club, 181 Winter St., Belmont.
- The auctions took place in the St. James Ballroom at the Eben Jordan Mansion, 46 Beacon St., Beacon Hill.
- Thomas drove his dune buggy on Crane Beach in Ipswich.
- He flew his glider in Salem, New Hampshire.
- The meat shop scene took place at Blackstone and North streets in Boston's North End.
- Thomas and Vicki walked in the rain in Copp's Hill Cemetery in Boston's North End.
Other locations included:
Reception
The film was only moderately successful at the box office, grossing $14,000,000 on a $6,000,000 budget. Reviews at the time were mixed. The chemistry between McQueen and Dunaway and Norman Jewison's stylish direction were praised, but the plotting and writing were considered rather thin. Roger Ebert gave it 2 1/2 stars out of four and called it "possibly the most under-plotted, underwritten, over-photographed film of the year. Which is not to say it isn't great to look at. It is."[2] Despite its tepid reaction, however, it has since become a cult film and inspired a 1999 remake.
The film won an Academy Award for Best Song for "Windmills of Your Mind" by Michel Legrand (music), Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman (lyrics). It was also nominated for Original Music Score for Legrand's score.
Remake
A remake was released in 1999 starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. In the remake, Faye Dunaway also appears as Thomas Crown's therapist.
Cultural references
In the 2004 remake of Alfie there is a scene where Alfie (Jude Law) returns to his flat and finds his girlfriend Nikki (Sienna Miller) asleep in front of the television which is showing the scene where Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen first kiss. The same scene is being shown the first time Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine kiss in the film Being There.
The Thomas Crown Affair is referenced in countless heist movies. For example, in the 2001 remake of Ocean's 11, Frank Catton asks Livingston Dell "how we doin'?" during the film's climactic scene, to which Dell responds, "OK", an echo of the dialogue between two of the characters in the opening heist scene of The Thomas Crown Affair.
The scene where Dunaway and McQueen play chess is spoofed in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me with Mike Myers and Kristen Johnston.
In the 2006 Nelly Furtado single Promiscuous, Timbaland introduces himself as Thomas Crown.
References
External links
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" Your Hit Parade" (1950–1959) · "The Big Revue" (1952) · "Wayne and Shuster" (1954) · "The Denny Vaughan Show" (1954–1957) · "The Barris Beat" (1956) · "The Adventures of Chich" (1958) · "The Chevy Showroom Starring Andy Williams" (1958) · "The Big Party" (1959) · "The Revlon Revue" (1960) · "Picture Windows" (1994) · The 20th Century: Funny Is Money (1999) · Dinner with Friends (2001) |
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| Also: Canadian Film Centre |
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