Will Gets Crowned

The procedure went just fine yesterday. We'll have results in a few weeks.

We really need to figure out how to stop getting so worked up about things [Meh, it was their screw up-Ed].

What Will's Watching...As ordered we took it easy yesterday. So we watched The Thomas Crowne Affair (1968) and (1999). We'll review the original today. TTCA is a love story about two good looking people wrapped around a bank heist. The 1968 version is a time capsule, 1968 - as experienced by grownups. There's no hippies here. No rock. The score is modern jazz. People dress up to go out. Men wear fedoras. Smoking is still cool.

Steve McQueen plays Crowne as a successful, self-assured, and stylish businessman. When Crowne takes his stolen two million bucks to Switzerland, the bank president is at first reluctant. 'It's all there,' Crowne assures him. When the president balks Crowne says, 'But you will do it.' And finally, 'Enjoy my money.'

Crowne flies gliders, plays polo and drive's dune buggies for fun. He places thousand dollar bets on golf shots out of boredom. 

Faye Dunaway is Vicki Anderson, a brilliant insurance investigator. Anderson is beautiful, stylish, curious, playful and every bit Crowne's match. She's been sent by the insurance company to bust Crowne and tells him so. How does Dunaway do that with her eyes? My word. 

After they meet at an art auction (of course) Crowne and Anderson go about Massachusetts being cool fabulous together.  

There's lots of great supporting performances here. Jack Weston (readers will recognize him) is great as the driver and the fink. 'I'm in' he says when Crowne offers him the job in the movie's first scene in a darkened hotel room. Paul Blake is detective Eddie Malone, at once resentful and intrigued by Vicki Anderson. Anderson likes Malone and even respects him and spends several scenes on his arm. Why in another world the two might even be a couple. To Malone's credit he never hits on Anderson. 

TTCA is a 'look at me!' film with lots of out of focus and split screen shots which some viewers may find annoying. We enjoyed them as a part of time and place. 

All these elements come together in a movie that shows us late-stage middle-brow cool. 4/4

Political note, general: we looked at RCP polls and we see a sea of blue. Here in NJ07, Rebecca Bennett has a five point lead on Tom Kean, which is unchanged from June.  We've seen this movie before, in 2018 when Dem challenger Tom Malinowski beat GOP incumbent Leonard Lance. The ingredients are mixed. Exit question, has the cake baked?  

Yes, we're feeling doomy. 

DOGE report.

We read over a few scenes. Nothing more.