It was an ultimate image flick

And the film belongs McQueen and the direction. Many have complained about the "over use" of the split screen technique but it is always used to propel the movie forward.

Faye Dunaway was used as a "clothes horse" was the criticism in the day, but that is obviously not so. She is a respectable adversary to Crown . . . or so it seems.

Thomas Crown was looking for a challenge. Everything he touched turned to gold without effort. Even the bank robberies were no challenge until "Vickie girl" showed up. She made it a challenge; sort of. But Crown already had his loot stashed in a true "numbered" account in Switzerland in an era when banking secrecy could ignore the IRS. The challenge was, therefore, his own emotions and lonliness. Remember, he lived in that huge house alone, drove his Rolls alone and occasionally flew to Europe for breakfast with a nymphette. That he conquered his challenge is a tribute to his planning and self-control . . . and Vicki's overconfidence in her charms (which were rather considerable).

But, in the end, it was McQueen's film. I first saw the movie on the eve of my marriage and my wife to be said out loud, "How can she fink on him! How could anyone fink on him?" Decades later (and a divorce later) a new (and very young) main squeeze who had never before seen McQueen put it more succinctly.

"I'd do him! I'd do him in a flash."

Funnily enough, all of his ex-wives and his widow still adored him and actually toured together after his death to put down rumours of cruelty and abuse. It is that magnetic sexual attraction coupled with a rebellious but almost contemplative manliness that trancends the screen. Frankly, no one has had it since.

Certainly not Alec Baldwin or Pierce Brosnan.