It Takes A Thief: The Complete Series DVD Review (1 Viewer)

[Scott511]

Here we go with the vault fire myth again!

Everything Universal has not released is blamed on the fire, (although Scott was NOT doing that) too bad your story won't get the traction on the net like the myth.

Reminds me of the myth of the turbines (flying motorcycles) seen in Galactica: 1980 were built for Battlestar Galactica. NO, they were not...

 

[ScottRE]

Everything Universal has not released is blamed on the fire, (although Scott was NOT doing that)

Thank you Fellow Scott.

Reminds me of the myth of the turbines (flying motorcycles) seen in Galactica: 1980 were built for Battlestar Galactica. NO, they were not...

That would have meant spending money on the series. Which they really kinda didn't. Galactica 1980 still makes my heart hurt.

 

[Scott511]

Thank you Fellow Scott.



That would have meant spending money on the series. Which they really kinda didn't. Galactica 1980 still makes my heart hurt.

The ONLY thing Universal spent $ on for G80: the flying motorcycles, Dr. Zee's anti-gravity ship, Cylon A-B fighter, and Adama's beard.

 

[ScottRE]

Was Dr. Zee's ship made for G80? It's so generic and really far away from the BSG style, I thought it was grabbed from another production.

 

[DeWilson]

Everything Universal has not released is blamed on the fire, (although Scott was NOT doing that) too bad your story won't get the traction on the net like the myth.

I know that Scott wasn't doing that, but it never hurts to dispel the myths - even if people want to believe the myth.

As for the Universal Music Group holdings - that's NOT a myth (and it does confuse the situation with the TV and Film holdings) - and made more of a mess by UMG's cover-up for the last 12 years - which was finally exposed last year.

 

[Scott511]

Was Dr. Zee's ship made for G80? It's so generic and really far away from the BSG style, I thought it was grabbed from another production.

Yep it was. check out this link and scroll down to the G80 section.

Battlestar Galactica - Galactica 1980 - Episodes VFX Description

Did anyone buy the German box set release of it Takes A Thief? I planned to more than once, but always bought something else instead (Riptide, Hunter, Hardcastle, etc) and it disappeared around the beginning of this year. Don't know if it's OOP or not.

 

[ScottRE]

Yep it was. check out this link and scroll down to the G80 section.

Battlestar Galactica - Galactica 1980 - Episodes VFX Description

That's awesome thanks! It also answers a few questions I had about the effects timeline and the short of Earth in the opening credits of 1980. It was the same used on Buck Rogers every week but I didn't know what show it was made for. Seems like Buck.

 

[Gordiac]

Did anyone buy the German box set release of it Takes A Thief? I planned to more than once, but always bought something else instead (Riptide, Hunter, Hardcastle, etc) and it disappeared around the beginning of this year. Don't know if it's OOP or not.

I did. Just can't remember if it was because the American version was OOP or just too expensive.

Good , enjoyable show from what I can gather (lack of English subtitles isn't exactly helping) and I'm currently at the latter half of the second season.

 

[Wiseguy]

Would like to see another three-season Universal series with Robert Wagner: Switch (1975-78)

 

[albert_m2]

Ithere are more practical cases you can easily buy that will hold the discs if that's what you want.

Yeah, I kept the box and season packaging, but put the discs in standard dvd multidisc cases.

 

[bmasters9]

Yeah, I kept the box and season packaging, but put the discs in standard dvd multidisc cases.

A smart move on your part! I think those will make the discs last.

 

[lj01]

Sorry if I'm missing something here, but a question for those familiar...is there a version of the original pilot on this set? The original pilot on Jan 9 1968 ran for 90 minutes, which I assume would be about 75 minutes without commercials. The versions of the pilot on this set are (I think) a truncated version of about 65-ish minutes and then the feature length of 99 minutes. Again, sorry if I'm missing something.

 

[The 1960's]

Sorry if I'm missing something here, but a question for those familiar...is there a version of the original pilot on this set? The original pilot on Jan 9 1968 ran for 90 minutes, which I assume would be about 75 minutes without commercials. The versions of the pilot on this set are (I think) a truncated version of about 65-ish minutes and then the feature length of 99 minutes. Again, sorry if I'm missing something.

There are two Magnificent Thief Pilots, the first is noted "Extended" which runs 1:39:29.

​

The second, Magnificent Thief runs 1:04:35.

​

IMDb refers to it as A Thief Is a Thief.

"It Takes a Thief" A Thief Is a Thief (TV Episode 1968) ⭐ 7.7 | Action, Adventure, Crime

51m | TV-PG

www.imdb.com

 

[lj01]

Thanks for clarifying, I was estimating. But, it doesn't seem like either of these would have been shown in the 90-minute time slot on ABC in 1968, the 1:39 version is too long obviously, and the 1:04 version is too short. According to the IMDB entry (thanks for linking), the pilot on ABC was a cut of the 1:39 version but it doesn't seem like it would be cut to 1:04. So, anyway, if anyone has any additional insight, I'd be interested, thanks.

 

[ScottRE]

Thanks for clarifying, I was estimating. But, it doesn't seem like either of these would have been shown in the 90-minute time slot on ABC in 1968, the 1:39 version is too long obviously, and the 1:04 version is too short. According to the IMDB entry (thanks for linking), the pilot on ABC was a cut of the 1:39 version but it doesn't seem like it would be cut to 1:04. So, anyway, if anyone has any additional insight, I'd be interested, thanks.

OP @Timothy E noted the shorter running time of the TV movie version:

I believe that the pilot episode "The Magnificent Thief" was transferred from a PAL source since the running time of 65 minutes is slightly shorter than it ought to be even without commercials, and the audio seems to run at a slightly higher pitch than the remaining episodes.

This may account for why it seems too short to fit in a 90 minute timeslot.

 

[lj01]

Thanks - sorry, I skimmed over that. It seems short even for a PAL transfer/speedup but I'll go with that explanation...thanks again!

 

[ScottRE]

You bet. There may also have been a "here are some scenes of future episodes of It Takes a Thief" previews and other promos to fill it out.

 

[Lecagr]

On the complete series DVD set from E One Entertainment, the extended feature length version of the pilot appears to be a VHS dub and runs about 99 minutes. I'm glad that it was included as this is the only version that I watch, I don't watch the condensed/edited version with an original air date of 1/9/1968.

 

[Neil Brock]

Thanks - sorry, I skimmed over that. It seems short even for a PAL transfer/speedup but I'll go with that explanation...thanks again!

For example, the other 90 minute series we can use for comparison from that era would be Name of the Game, which clocks in complete at 76 minutes. So then it seems that there should be a third version of the pilot somewhere!

 

[lj01]

I tried reconstructing the pilot based on the "long" version and the "short" version on the DVD set. There is definitely speed-up in the short version, when one extracts the short version from the full-length, it clocks in at 1:08, which is still a little bit short for a 90-minute timeslot.

I've gotten a little involved here, but if anyone's interested read on...

The full-length and the short version match up until the 50:21 point in the long version. The segment between 50:21 and 1:15:28 is removed in the short version, so that's 25 minutes cut. The short version picks up 26 seconds between 1:15:23 and 1:15:54 and then cuts the part between 1:15:54 and 1:22:34.

Now, to further complicate matters, in reading reviews of the pilot episode in 1968 newspapers, two cut scenes from the 64-min pilot are mentioned...one being the exotic dance scene of Senta Berger and another scene where RW rescues Senta from getting acid thrown at her. These scenes occur consecutively between 50:21 and 1:06:26 in the full-length version. To add them into the truncated pilot, it then expands to ~84 minutes...which seems would be too long.

So, I'm not sure if it's possible to figure out at this point.