In 1968, the same year he starred in "Bullitt", Steve McQueen had another iconic cool role on the opposite side of the law in THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR.
McQueen is Crown, a wealthy bank executive who's created the near perfect crime, organizing five men that never meet to execute a daring bank robbery.
Writer Alan Trustman (Bullitt) and Director Norman Jewison (In The Heat of the Night) craft a film that was daring in the late sixties, with long dialogue-free sequences and rapid fire visuals.
Pablo Ferraro created the ground breaking title sequence for "Bullitt" and he takes that to the next level here through the entire film, with multiple sliding split screens and images to drive the story.
Faye Dunaway stars as Vicki Anderson, an insurance investigator with questionable moral boundaries that begins to follow Crown and then finds herself getting closer and closer to her target.
Paul Burke, a 60's and 70's TV staple in shows like"Combat", "12 O'Clock High" and "Starsky & Hutch" stars as the lead detective on the case and Jack Weston appears in a straight dramatic role as one of Crown's team.
The entire movie oozes late sixties class and style and McQueen is timeless. He could walk into a movie today in this wardrobe and this attitude and appear contemporary. He's one of the best and this is a great role for him.
Dunaway's a matter of taste, she always appears to be working too hard for me to think she's very good, but she sure looks the part.
Michelle Legrand's score is great, including several uses of "The Windmills of Your Mind".
This was remade very well with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in 1999, but other than a glider sequence and a few other key notes, it was a different setting for a great story.
The original is a fun time travel back to the late sixties and one of the best films in McQueen's all too brief film legacy.
It still steals an A, nearly 50 years after its release.
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