It Takes a Thief (1 Viewer)

[Jeff#]

What was arguably Robert Wagner's best TV series has yet to be offered by Universal on DVD. You would think with Bob's "comeback" in all 3 Austin Powers movies, and occasional guest appearances on Hope and Faith that we would get to see It Takes a Thief again!

The show was on for 3 seasons, but the final year (1969-1970) was the most outstanding on several fronts. The writing was as intricate as ever as Alexander Mundy plotted one heist for the government after another. The music and split screen montage in the opening theme was first-rate. It was also in that year that Fred Astaire played the role of his career in several episodes as a semi-regular: Al's father and mentor in crime: Alister Mundy! Fred's first time on the show was in "The Great Casino Caper". It was...as his son would say, "Terrific"!

Bette Davis turned up in "Touch of Magic" and future Wagner Hart to Hart co-star Stefanie Powers, along with Broderick Crawford were in "Fortune City". The episode with Dick Smothers in a serious role as a racing driver wasn't so great, but it was different.

If this series ever comes to home video, they would start with the 2 hour pilot TV movie "Magnificent Thief" from 1967, which along with reruns of the 65 episodes I caught when WWOR's EMI Service channel used to show them in 1995.

 

[Mark To]

Yeah, WWOR was great everywhere but NY where it originates from. Here it sucked but everywhere else it ran great shows, complete and uncut. That said, I've been transferring my It Takes a Thief episodes as I am not optomistic about it's release.

 

[Jeff#]

Being on the West Coast now, I don't know if WWOR still has their EMI Service offering alternate programming (when Mets games or current series reruns playing on WWOR also ran on your local station).

TV Land had It Takes a Thief a few years back, but not on a regular basis.

 

[Mark To]

And I'm sure cut down to 44 minutes from the 51 minute original run time. No, my tapes are from San Francisco and Dallas, both of which did not cut.

 

[Claude North]

I'd love to see this show on DVD. The episode featuring special guest stars The Fifth Dimension makes it, for me anyway, a must-have! I loved the LONG opening credit scroll that announced each member of the group separately. ("Billy Davis, Jr. as 'Billy'")

 

[Daryl Stovall]

Yeah, and Marilyn McCoo singing One Less Bell to Answer. I'd love to get this series on DVD.