TV series 'It Takes a Thief' comes to DVD

Two crime films became international hits in the mid-1950s and set the pace for heist pictures ever after — the French "Rififi," about a gang of thieves pulling off an intricate jewel theft, and Alfred Hitchcock's "To Catch a Thief," set in France, with Cary Grant as a suave, debonair retired cat burglar who is being framed.

Overnight, sophisticated crooks became a staple of the movies, and a string of caper pictures — some serious, some comic — followed over the next decade and beyond.

Then, James Bond made a splash in the early 1960s — a splash that became a cinematic tsunami — and crime films found themselves competing with myriad spy flicks, some serious, some comic.

So it was only a matter of time before someone would combine the two, and thus, the TV series "It Takes a Thief" was born.

Starring Robert Wagner as Alexander Mundy, cat burglar par excellence, the series has him recruited to work for a government agency, stealing in the name of American service.

"It Takes a Thief: The Complete Series," which makes its DVD debut this week (eOne, 1968-70, 18 discs, retailing at $199.98 but available for half that), owes a lot to both Hitchcock and Bond.

And the show has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek, which is what helps it to hold up in the 21st century — in a "Man From U.N.C.L.E."-"I Spy" kind of way, to name just two contemporaries.

The expected TV cliches of the period are all here, but the stories are witty, the dialogue is fun and Wagner, in his first television series, is youthful (although he was pushing 40), charming and gets to impersonate an array of characters.

And if you're a fan of the current USA show "White Collar," you'll notice a lot of resemblances: The pilot has Mundy in prison when he's paroled by the agent who caught him. He's placed under "house arrest," of sorts, and commits sanctioned thievery and con games.

The main difference is that in this series Mundy goes all over the world.

Baby boomers will also enjoy the array of Hollywood faces climbing up and down the ladder of stardom over the show's three-season run.

The pilot alone features Susan Saint James, Raymond Burr, Leslie Nielsen, boxing champ Joe Louis, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Wally Cox.