Last week a band of cross-dressing jewel thieves stole 102 million dollars worth of loot from the Harry Winston store on Paris’ fashionable Avenue Montaigne. Armed, wigged, and dangerous, they not only snagged items from the display cases but also knew the ins and outs of the goods in the back room and called the salespeople by their names. Maybe they were the husbands of international socialites doing their recession time Christmas shopping.

I recently watched the 1968 Steve McQueen-Faye Dunaway film, The Thomas Crown Affair. The Pierce Brosnan remake had a sexy art heist tone to it. I figured that the original would be even more alluring, especially since it was shot at my favorite mansion on Mount Vernon Street in Boston’s Beacon Hill.

Verdict vis-à-vis The Thomas Crown Affair original
(click on the highlighted links for visual examples):

***** for pre-1970’s cheese-factor
(though rather fetching male short shorts)

***** for atrocious Steve McQueen acting
(and absurdly unrealistic smoking skills)

***** for erotic chess-playing incidents

***** for fabulous over-sized hats

***** for excessive use of snazzy new split-screen editing

Maybe the cross-dressing Harry Winston robbers are merely bored tycoons expressing their secret fetish for women’s luxury items. It seems like more than a violent criminal act: perhaps the culprits have performance art aspirations.

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