I just watched this movie last night with wifey and have got to say it is one of the best I have ever seen in years. Renne Russo was great.....and the ending in the gallery (I won't explain it to spoil the show for those of you who have never seen it) was hilarious !! This one gets a 5 star rating all the way !!
Too bad it was just a glimpse. Why didnt Mcqueen used it more ? Instead of his RR .. Ferraris are always glimpsed in movies..
Sidenote: The '67 275GTS/4 NART was just auctioned off at Christie's for $3,960,000. According to Autoweek, it is 1 million more than what it would have been in 2004.
This was one of the rare cases where the remake was as good (more or less) as the original. One thing I noticed is that the remake captured an aspect of many films of the '60s: a bit of "travelogue" element -- showing off the Bahamas or some other "jet set" destination in the film. Seeing the remake now is especially poignant, with that scene of the offshore view of the NYC skyline featuring the WTC. Having Faye play the shrink in the remake was cute.
Awesome flick, definitely in my top ten of all time. I remember seeing a movie poster waaaaaaay across the movie threatre lobby, and all it was was half-face shots of Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, and I didn't even know what kind of movie it was - as I walked closer to check it out, I'd already decided that I HAD to see these two together. Absolutely loved it. There's actually a sequel in the works (on and off)... The Topkapi Affair. Taking some plot points from 1964's Topkapi but not recreating the storyline.
Jet used by Crown: Challenger 604 Crown's watch: A Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso with "JLC" digitally removed due to Brosnan's contract with Omega at the time. The watch used in this film was given to him by his first wife, who died of cancer. Here is the triva about the film from the International Movie Database (IMDB.com): Pierce Brosnan's contract to play James Bond specifies that he may not wear a tuxedo in other films. Midway through "The Thomas Crown Affair," Brosnan dances at a black-tie ball. When Rene Russo cuts in to dance with him we see that the top button of his shirt is open and his white bow-tie is untied, therefore he is technically not wearing a tuxedo. Faye Dunaway, who played the psychologist in this movie, played the detective in the 1968 original. The dark green Shelby Mustang that Crown drives on Martinique was originally intended to be used for Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in Last Action Hero (1993), another John McTiernan film, and was retrieved from the director's garage for this film. The tractor in the background after the glider lands, belongs to director John McTiernan. The idea of unusual heat in the museum rendering thermal cameras useless came from director John McTiernan's earlier movie Predator (1987). In that movie, John McTiernan's actual thermal cameras began to fail when the jungle temperature broke 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Director John McTiernan decided to change the heist from a bank robbery, as was seen in the Steve McQueen version, to an art heist. as seen in this version. John McTiernan felt that at the time the film was released, audiences would be less forgiving of Thomas Crown if he staged two armed bank robberies for fun than if he staged an unarmed art heist. The final heist consisted of men wearing bowler hats, trench coats, and carrying briefcases, to confuse the surveillance team. This was similar to The Heist (1989) (TV), another Pierce Brosnan film, where a heist at a horse track involved multiple men wearing Hawaiian shirts and straw hats. One of the songs played by the band in the ballroom scene is "Windmills of Your Mind," a song written for the original film, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), that became a big hit in the late 1960s. This is the first of two remakes that John McTiernan made from Norman Jewison movies. The other one is Rollerball (2002). Thomas Crown's suite of offices was actually the corporate headquarters of Lucent Technologies, and one of the boats in the race is identified as Lucent. Pierce Brosnan performed his own stunts during the boat crash scene. At the time of filming, Pierce Brosnan was not a golfer, and thus he had to take lessons for a couple weeks to make his scene hitting out of a sand trap look believable. The Monet paintings used in the film, "San Giorgio Maggiore at dusk" and "Wheatstacks", are, of course, reproductions and were supplied by "Troubetzkoy Paintings" in New York, USA. What's more, the originals are not owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. "San Giorgio Maggiore at dusk" is owned by the Bridgestone Museum of Art in Tokyo, Japan and is currently (2003) on display in the National Museum and Art Gallery, Cardiff, Wales. "Wheatstacks" is at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The painting Crown admires and calls "his haystacks" is Vincent van Gogh's "Noon: Rest From Work (After Millet)", the original of which is in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France. The catamaran that Thomas Crown is seen racing in Long Island Sound is a D-Type Catamaran, an extremely fast and highly unstable yacht design from the 1980s. The D-Type's were designed by California based aeronautical engineers to try to break inshore multihull speed records. Today there are only a handful of them left in the world. The final conversation between Detective McCann and Banning in which he essentially excuses her from the investigation so she can chase down Thomas Crown was not in the original script, but added about halfway through filming. When we first see Thomas Crown's bedroom, briefly visible on his dresser is an autographed and personalized black and white photo from supermodel Cindy Crawford. The Metropolitan Museum of Art refused permission for their interior to be used in the film, so the filmmakers used the New York Public Library, a few blocks, away for many interior scenes, and a sound stage for the rest. The exterior of the Metropolitan was shown several times, with permission from the city of New York. Despite the fact that the museum is never mentioned by name, in one of the first scenes a proctor is seen wearing a blazer with "Metropolitan Museum" clearly visible on it. A key plot development occurs when Banning tells Detective McCann to check the borders of the paintings, telling him that artwork insurers photograph the borders hidden by the frames to guard against forgeries. This is a clever explanation that the filmmakers came up with, but it is also completely untrue. No respectable museum would display a painting in a frame that hides even a small portion of the artist's work. The scene of Crown racing a catamaran replaced a similar scene in the original script that was set at a polo match. Director John McTiernan deemed a polo match to be too much of a cliche, and wanted a scene that conveyed more action and excitement, and not just wealth. In the final museum scene, Crown slowly twirls around 360 degrees and mutters, "Play ball!" before starting the cat and mouse game. This is a reference to Yankees Hall of Famer Babe Ruth, who reportedly slowly spun completely around waving at all sections of Yankee Stadium before playing his final game. Robert D. Novak, a political columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and co-star (or frequent guest star) of such political talk shows as "Crossfire" (1982) and "The McLaughlin Group" (1982), has a cameo appearance as a museum proctor. The suit designer who appears in Thomas Crown's office is Gino Campagna, who has been featured on CNN's Richard Quest's segment. He also the designer responsible for the look of the clothes in the film The fire protection system used in the film's finale is not actually used in real museums. In the elevator after the boardroom meeting, Thomas Crown and his subordinates quote from the Leonard Cohen song "The Stranger Song": "Ah, you hate to see another tired man lay down his hand like he was giving up the holy game of poker." Rene Russo performed the first nude scenes of her career in this movie. When Crown sees Catherine off after they meet at the museum (when he donates the painting) he gives the limo two taps on the hood to signal the driver. This was Pierce Brosnan's trademark sendoff to Fred (Blake Clark), the driver in his breakthrough role, "Remington Steele" (1982). The house used as Crown's Caribbean get-away is owned by one of the 30 original families who settled in Martinique in the 1600s. The scene in which Catherine 'lassos' her towel around Thomas' neck took 16 takes to get it just right. Weights were added to the towel to get it to work correctly. In the scene where Catherine sees Anna in Thomas' bedroom, Pierce Brosnan was instructed to physically hold onto Rene Russo, so that she would have to struggle to get away from him. Rene Russo did not know that Pierce Brosnan was going to hold on to her. The painting that is seen several times in the film depicting a man in a suit with an apple covering his face is "Son of Man," by 'Rene Magritte' . The film originally showed Crown breaking the backing of the Monet painting in order to fit it into his briefcase. However, John McTiernan later decided that audiences might be put off if they saw him in some way damage the painting, so he edited the scene so that it only showed Crown putting the folded painting into his briefcase, and figured most people wouldn't catch on to the fact that the briefcase was half the size of the painting. The line, "You're not boring, I'll give you that," was ad-libbed by Rene Russo.
Great film. My only problem with it was, when they rolled back the film to find the heater under the chair (or third leg), we all assume it is the briefcase that he left in the morning. Why didnt they just roll back the film to see who left it there. I hate when plots fall apart like that. But besides that great movie.
I noticed that and couldn't help think "WTF?!" when he did it, haha. I don't know how he even broke the wooden frame. Excellent movie, though.
One of my top 5 all-time. Brosnan got a large ovation on the actors studio when they mentioned it. Great scene at night with brosnan and russo walking along and window shopping with an instrumental version of the originals theme song playing. Got the dvd after looking for it for a while. Original was almost as good but not filmed as well as remake.
