However, it was a transitional period for TV, and the show ends up strongly implying that Mundy manages to have a sex life anyway (and this progressive scamp is willing to flirt with women of every race and nation). With his cameras, Noah personifies the broadcast standards of his day: tease and tantalize with voyeuristic promise but don’t go through with it. Closed-circuit monitors in the mansion are meant to ensure that Mundy never gets anywhere with the she-keepers, lest Noah show up glowering and barking like a dyspeptic producer annoyed with his star. For a nod at credibility, at least Noah is always bitching about his budget. For his cover as an international playboy (and noted thief? for plot purposes, he can be either), he lives in a mansion and must be seen at casinos on the arms of beautiful women. The show isn’t coy about naming the Cold War enemy, although it often invents foreign nations for its antics. So Noah Bain springs Mundy on parole and keeps him on a tight leash, always threatening to bounce him back into stir if he fails to pull off some heist from a foreign embassy or retrieve a defector or double agent from the Soviets or the Red Chinese. It’s fair to say the producers don’t really want it to sink in. If we want to steal something, let’s have a thief.” If you let that elitist pragmatism sink in, it opens the possibility of a subversive, satirical critique. The best people for that are thieves and murderers. In the pilot, he glibly summarizes the premise thusly: “Espionage today is mainly larceny and homicide. He’s a chief of the SIA, which is supposed to be the CIA without coming out and saying it. The balding, gruff, almost snarling Bain looks a bit like an angry doorknob. On the day he executes an ingenious escape attempt, he discovers he’s been tapped for service by Noah Bain (Malachi Throne), the ex-cop who arrested him. He plays suave anti-hero Al Mundy, who enjoys a reputation as a world-class thief, a glamorous burglar, a black-garbed dangler from skylights over fabulous jewels in closely-guarded museums, a spinner of combination locks with his ear to the tumblers, not to mention a pickpocket’s pickpocket. The series was a vehicle for Robert Wagner in his niche as a handsome TV-friendly leading man who avoids overly heavy material. The box contains all three seasons plus a few bonuses, and we shall stroll through the summery maze of its garden with our magnifying glass in one hand and pinking shears in the other, a manservant following behind with a tall cool beverage on a silver salver. Some shows come out on DVD a season at a time, or even half a season, but not this one. A product of TV’s schizophrenic late ’60s, It Takes a Thief is a light-hearted escapist adventure that ran on America’s ABC network from January 1969 to March 1970.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |