28 June 2016

'The Chess Burglar'

Dealing with the aftermath of an attempted break-in left me little time for chess blogging today. Let's have a photo on the theme 'chess burglar'.

The photo's caption said,

Another boost for the game of chess, along with the well-publicized Bobby Fischer, is in the offing with the release of the Tandem-Warner Bros. film "The Thief Who Came to Dinner". Ryan O'Neal starts as "the chess burglar" in the Bud Yorkin produced and directed film which also co-stars Jacqueline Bisset and Warren Oates.

I once used the same image in Chess in the Movies, where the IMDB reference leads to The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973). What's the chess connection?

Because he leaves at his thefts a calling card in the form a chess piece and a slip of paper with a chess move, [Webster McGee (Ryan O'Neal)], being coined the Chess Burglar by the media, begins a very public chess match with the Houston Post's elitist chess columnist Zukovsky, who dismisses the Chess Burglar as an amateur in every respect of the word.

The photo shows O'Neal in the act of burglarizing someone's home. Chess set or not, there's nothing cool about burglars.

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