Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway Putting the Sexy in a Game of Chess in The Thomas Crown Affair: .

You know that sexy chess game I mentioned yesterday? The one from The Thomas Crown Affair?
I found the six minute clip on youtube and I'm making it today's Sunday Slacker video. I know, I know. It's not a movie based on a book. I know BUT since the movie about Steve McQueen's life based in part on Marshall Terrill's autobiography is going forward, I'm considering everything Steve McQueen-related background research material. Or something. I'll be honest; it's just cool.

Michel LeGrand composed the music—part of what gives this particular chess game its atypical sizzle. I mean how often do the words 'sexy' and 'chess' show up in the same sentence? Leave it to McQueen and Faye Dunaway to put the sexy into chess in this very cool and stylized sequence.

Faye Dunaway's super chic 60's wardrobe was designed by three time Oscar nominee Theadora van Runkle—The Godfather II, Peggy Sue Got Married and Bonnie & Clyde—while Steve McQueen, style icon AKA the King of Cool, rocked the upper classy suits and tux look in much the same way that he did leather jackets, t-shirts and jeans.

Michel LeGrand's soundtrack featured The Windmills of Your Mind, sung by Noel Harrison, which won the Oscar for best song that year (1968); the movie must have been a welcome respite from the events of that very tumultuous spring. I turned fifteen that May, watching the world go mad on the evening news, stunned at Martin Luther King's assignation in April, followed by Bobby Kennedy's assassination that June. It's strange to remember that night after night, the horrors of Viet Nam and the civil unrest sweeping the country played on our TV sets, but I was too young for this R rated movie with the sexy chess game played by Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen.

The Thomas Crown Affair may not be a great movie but it's most definitely a great-looking one.
Take a look at the Chess Game scene and see what you think. I'd love to see the sales figures for chess sets for 1968. I bet they went sky high.