It Takes a Thief (1968 TV series) 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". (Or as is more widely used, "It takes 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
It Takes a Thief (1968 TV series) 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