It Takes a Thief (1968 TV series)

It Takes a Thief
Fred Astaire and Robert Wagner, 1969.
Genre	Drama/Adventure
Created by	Roland Kibbee
Starring	Robert Wagner Malachi Throne Fred Astaire Ed Binns
Theme music composer	Dave Grusin
Composer(s)	Dave Grusin Benny Golson Oliver Nelson Billy Goldenberg Lyn Murray Ernie Freeman
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	66 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jack Arnold Gordon Oliver Frank Price
Producer(s)	Gene L. Coon Leonard Horn Glen A. Larson Paul Mason Winston Miller Leslie Stevens
Running time	60 minutes
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	January 9, 1968 (1968-01-09) – March 24, 1970 (1970-03-24)

It Takes a Thief is an American action-adventure television series that aired on ABC for three seasons between 1968 and 1970. It stars Robert Wagner in his television debut as sophisticated thief Alexander Mundy, who works for the U.S. government in return for his release from prison. For most of the series, Malachi Throne played Noah Bain, Mundy's boss.

It was among the last of the 1960s spy television genre, although Mission: Impossible continued for several more years. It Takes A Thief was inspired by, though not based upon, the 1955 Cary Grant motion picture To Catch a Thief, directed by Alfred Hitchcock; both of their titles stem from the English proverb "Set a thief to catch a thief."

It Takes a Thief, which was created by television writer Roland Kibbee, featured the adventures of cat burglar, pickpocket, and thief Alexander Mundy, who steals to finance his life as a polished playboy and sophisticate. He is in prison when the U.S. government's SIA (the fictional Secret Intelligence Agency) proposes a deal to Mundy: steal for the government in exchange for his freedom. Mundy is puzzled and asks, "Let me get this straight. You want me to steal?" In the main opening titles, his new SIA boss, Noah Bain, uses the catch phrase, "Oh, look, Al, I'm not asking you to spy. I'm just asking you to steal." In pre-production, the title for a while was Once a Crook.

The series opened with its pilot episode, a ninety-minute (with commercials) special premiere titled "A Thief is a Thief is a Thief," written by Kibbee and directed by Leslie Stevens. When the series was released in syndication in the 1970s, the pilot episode was withheld from the package and was expanded into a 99-minute feature film for overseas release; this was eventually released in a separate domestic syndication package, under the title Magnificent Thief. The pilot feature film version was released on home video in the 1990s.