It Takes a Thief (TV Series) Saturday Night in Venice (1969) User Reviews

Great Venice, Italy location; but a mixed result

[shakspryn · 7/10 · 14 June 2017]

Spoilers ahead: Pluses: We get to see Al in Venice, Italy, walking in St Mark's Square, riding in gondolas and great-looking motorboats; the premise is excellent, that Al's been fatally poisoned and has 40 hours to live unless he gets an antidote from the Russians; and there are some good, snappy lines and good action scenes.

Minuses: Several. A big strength of this series was that viewers got to enjoy seeing Al's suave, fun flirting with different beautiful women. Because of the super-serious plot, we don't get that here. Delia Boccardo, the Russian agent, was a lovely 21 year old Italian woman, but she seems more convent-school girl than sultry femme fatale, and she says her lines dutifully, with little evident emotion. And she's given some silly lines, too. Several times, as Al suffers from the poison, she says things like, "Are you OK? What's wrong?" Uh, he's dying from poison you gave him, Delia! Story drags at times. Print looks like a VHS tape, weak color. Still worth seeing, though.

Third season changes radically from the first two seasons

[CCsito · 4/10 · 28 November 2009]

This is the premiere episode of It Takes a Thief as it began the third season without the Noah Bain character (Malachi Throne). The series producers decided to go to Italy to film the third season and to relegate the Noah Bain character to cameo appearances back in the US. Malachi Throne objected to this change and left the show. The original premise of the Al Mundy character being monitored by the SIA in each episode of the first two seasons appear to have been discarded to change him into some kind of James Bond spy who goes on foreign ventures. The Italian episodes appear to be focused on the scenery and not on the plot. The series lost much of its humor and attraction by this shift in scenery and character change. Midway through the third season, it appears that the producers abandoned the foreign theme and returned Al Mundy back to the USA and added special guest stars to the cast (like Fred Astaire, Betty Davis, Elsa Lancaster), but by then it was too late and the series was canceled.

Bottom line, the producers killed the show by changing the locale of the episodes and Al Mundy's character. The humorous bits in the first two seasons are completely missing in the third season.

This particular episode dealt with Al in Venice where he steals a computer part from the Russians and they hire an agent to poison him. The female Russian agent appears to have been a good friend of Al's even though she poisons him. He is told to return the computer part or he will not get the antidote. Al comes up with a way to trick the Russians in the end and save his own life.