Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 16-March-03
Spoiler Rating: Low

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Silly me. Here I've been thinking that chess was a cerebral activity pursued by eggheads with other eggheads, computers, or Death (sometimes in Bangkok), but now I discover that moving knights and pawns across the board can be a sizzling sort of foreplay. Leave it to Steve McQueen, one of America's definitions of cool, and Faye Dunaway, the babe who always plays by her own rules, to illuminate me.

The sexy gaming scene in question is featured in Norman Jewison's 1968 movie, "The Thomas Crown Affair" (not to be confused with the 1999 remake of the same name), a smart, engaging romantic thriller that uses the very particular personae of its leads to create that most rare of movie phenomena: the impression of a relationship between people instead of a fairy tale between caricatures. Which isn't to say that the film isn't deliberately dramatic and stylized, but just that it feels like a unique story about unique individuals.

McQueen plays the eponymous leading man, a hugely successful Boston business mogul who appears to lead a charmed life defined by health, wealth, fast cars, young women, imported cigars, etc. (A divorce is the only blot on his fabulous record.) The problem is, the polo matches and weekend bets on the golf course have ceased to satisfy his yen for yayas, so that when his supermodel girlfriend asks him, "What do you have to worry about?" he answers, "Who I want to be tomorrow." Thus we find Mr. Crown masterminding a bank heist at the start of the film, in which five men calmly make off with 2.6 million dollars in front of 32 witnesses, none of whom can positively identify them. When local police detective Eddy Malone (Paul Burke) fails to make headway on the case, the bank's insurance company calls in the big guns: Vicki Anderson (Dunaway), a brilliant, wily, uninhibited vixen who always gets her man. Despite the fact neither of them will ever see the pearly gates, it's clear from the get-go that Tommy and Vicki are a match made in heaven.

The cat-and-mouse game that follows (or, more accurately, the fox-and-fox game) is a scintillating display of chemistry, as Vicki continues to amass evidence against Crown while sharing his seductive lifestyle and, soon enough, his bed. Unlike modern romances, "The Thomas Crown Affair" never asks its audience to like its leads or to root for some misty-eyed ending where love conquers all; instead, it brazenly revels in the characters' boldness, arrogance, and greed and dares you not to be dazzled by them. Few viewers, I believe, could take that dare, since the movie grabs hold and doesn't let go, thanks to a tight script, striking use of split frames, an in-your-face score, and --- most of all --- the charisma of McQueen and Dunaway. Tommy and Vicki really are self-serving bastards, but it's exhilarating to watch people who are smart, fearless, and utterly devoted to the finer things in life. They aren't bad to look at, either, which Jewison works to full advantage, showing how their soft outsides belie their hard-as-nails insides (note Vicki's schoolgirl wardrobe, a vivid joke she seems to be playing on the world). Without two such dynamic actors, "The Thomas Crown Affair" might have been . . . well, the remake with Pierce Brosnan and René Russo: pleasant enough, but forgettable. Because of the very specific, largely irresistible attractions of Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, it's an exciting, memorable ride.

Copyright © 2003 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.