What exactly did Virginia install at the four corners of the glass window before entering into the house?
In Entrapment (1999), Virginia's aim is to steal a Rembrandt portrait in an office. So she planned the stealing at night time and while entering into the building she installs this thing (image below) at four corners of window frame.
After she pressed something, the window slowly slides outside like this:
In most heist movies the thieves use to cut the glass in a circle shape and then enter into it, but this movie showed it differently. What device is Virginia using here?
Best Answer
It appears to be some type of window installation apparatus, although honestly it would never work. Windows of this type are installed from inside the building, so there would be a metal frame prohibiting the glass from being slid out from the outside. Which means the glass would need to be cut, but glass in a building is 6mm (~1/4") with double cladding, which means it is doubled up with 10mm's of insulating argon gas in between the two pieces of glass. Cutting double glass from the exterior in this manner would result in one piece staying attached to the apparatus while the other piece would freely fall with nothing holding it.
In short, the object is likely not to exist, and was "invented" specifically for the movie.
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Answer 2
She is drilling out the bolts at the corners and replacing them with a mechanism to let the window slide out. From the production script:
The Thief drills out bolts holding the window in place. Then one is stuck! In a heartstopping move the Thief turns upside down, torques on the recalcitrant bolt! Uhnnn! It comes free!
The Thief replaces the existing bolts with custom bolts buffered with rollers, pries at the window corners and pops the pane free. Then the Thief rolls the pane onto the rollers, leaving just enough room to slip into...
She later explains this in her role as an investigator, but blaming Mac:
What if he drilled out the existing bolts, replaced them with custom-fit rollers--rolled the window aside?
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Images: Ksenia Chernaya, Laura Tancredi, Max Vakhtbovych, Ronald Hayward