I fell in love with "The Thomas Crowne Affair" for three reasons: I already adored Steve McQueen from Bullit, and similarly, I thought no one could match Fay Dunaway after seeing her in Bonnie Clyde. Those are, of course, two reasons; the third was the hauntingly beautiful opening song, Windmills of Your Mind, sung by Noel Harrison (son of Rex Harrison, by the way. Put that away for trivia night).
Even if I hadn't already been ready to embrace the movie so enthusiastically because of all these preconceptions, I would have done so simply on its own merit. As preteen, I appreciated the non-traditional love story far more than the straightforward ones, and it lent a note of authenticity to a character's fantastic life and even more fantastic escapades.
With typical stubbornness, when I heard about the remake, I vowed never to see it. I felt quite justified in my dismissal of what I was sure was a mere shadow of the original, more so once I heard Sting was remaking the famed opening sequence song. There, I thought to myself, they couldn't even use the right music to their benefit, at least.
Windmills of Your Mind - Noel Harrison (The Thomas Crowne Affair opening sequence)
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I am not sure how or when it came about that I ended up seeing it; I suspect it was one of those sleepless nights in the year that shall not be mentioned, where I would spend hours after everyone had gone to bed, aimlessly clicking through channels in hopes of finding something, anything to distract me, until it would be time to start the day all over again and fight the wearying battle against the kid's demons that wouldn't let up. I probably realized what was playing and though it would be an excellent target for my pent-up anger that had nowhere to go.
By the time the movie ended, I realized that rather than spending a couple of hours finding fault, I'd spent a couple of hours--I couldn't use the words enjoy or relax yet, at that point--entertained. I didn't hate Pierce Brosnan or Rene Russo in their parts; they gave a different enough interpretation that I could appreciate the new adaptation, but they stayed true to the core of the characters. Possibly, their version of the main characters were more openly vulnerable, and that made for an interesting contrast.
The best part was that while I did hate the new version of the Windmills song, I found the rest of the movie's music to be quite well chosen and adapted to the overall mood of the scenes. The coup the grace, though, was the exquisitely matched Nina Simone song, Sinnerman, to the last main scene--here was a perfect, solid ten example of the character actor music I've talked about before.
Sinnerman - Nina Simone (The Thomas Crowne Affair remake)
