Review of The Thomas Crown Affair

Lieutenant with the Boston Police Department is joined by a female insurance investigator to crack "perfect robbery" of a Boston bank in broad daylight, netting over $2M. As it turns out, none of the men involved in the heist knew each other or their operative, a multi-millionaire sportsman who only orchestrated the robbery for kicks. Cat-and-mouse games among the rich and well-groomed, given a splashy treatment by director Norman Jewison and his editors, Hal Ashby (also an associate producer), Ralph E. Winters and Byron Brandt, who reportedly cut the film to the rhythms of Michel Legrand's Oscar-nominated music score. Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway look delicious together and, though the picture is almost all presentation (jazzed-up with split screen visuals), it's a thin but intoxicating mix of '60s style and cool-as-ice romance. One Oscar: for Best Song, "The Windmills of Your Mind", by Legrand with Alan and Marilyn Bergman. remade in 1999. *** from ****