Review of The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) by Stuart K — 30 Dec 2012

Directed and produced by Norman Jewison, who had just come off the huge Oscar-winning success of In The Heat Of The Night (1967), he wanted something a little lighter for his next film, and opted for this crime caper with a touch of romance about it.

While it's a good idea for a film, it suffers from a weak script and more time seems to have been spent on the films technicalities. Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is a rich playboy who is bored, he has everything but that's not enough, he plays polo and golf, flies a glider and drives a dune buggy, but he wants more, and he comes up with the idea for the perfect crime.

He hires 5 men who he's never met and never will, to rob a bank in Boston, and dump the money in a bin in a cemetery, and Crown will pick the money up, and deposit it in a bank in Geneva. However, Crown soon comes face to face with insurance investigator Vicki Anderson (Faye Dunaway), who is investigating the crime, and Anderson suspects Crown of the heist, but he's a match for her.

It should have been a film raging with chemistry and style, but the only high this film gets is a chess match and that's it. It's a bit of a let down, and it spends more time with the split screens and cinematography.

The only plusses that came from this film were that Hal Ashby did the editing and Walter Hill was the second unit director.