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Magnificent Thief is the syndication title given the 90-minute premiere episode of the lighthearted espionage TV series It Takes a Thief. Robert Wagner stars as Alexander Mundy, a brilliant cat burglar serving a prison sentence. He is paroled in the care of Noah Bain (Malachi Throne), head of the fictional spy agency "SIA." Bain wants Mundy to steal on behalf of the government--in exchange for a bachelor pad, all the comforts and a retinue of pretty ladies. Mundy's first assignment is to retrieve an attache case, containing the names of SIA agents marked for death by America's enemies. Susan Saint James, who in the It Takes a Thief series would play kooky lady thief Chuck Brown, appears briefly as an airline stewardess. She is but one of several luminaries making cameo appearances in Magnificent Thief, among them Raymond Burr, Wally Cox, Joe Louis, Doug McClure and Leslie Nielsen. Following the January 9, 1968 debut of It Takes a Thief, the show ran until September of 1970.