It Takes a Thief (originally released as The Challenge) was an English Production along the lines of The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw and Too Hot to Handle. It's a lower budget B-picture, in which Mansfield, as Billy, plays the ruthless leader of a group of thieves who've just taken in a big haul. Jim (Anthony Quayle) is her boyfriend and second-in-command. Billy wants to wait to split up the money, but the gang isn't so easily persuaded. She entrusts Jim to hide the money, but someone tips off the police, who catch Jim and put him in jail.

Jim never gives up the location of the money, so Billy and the gang pull off a few more jobs before Billy decides to wait out her Lover's sentence. When Jim is finally released from jail, both his former gang and the police put pressure on him to get him to lead them to the money. The gang eventually kidnaps Jim's son (NOT with Billy), threatening to kill him unless tells them where the money is hidden. Billy and Jim work together as he tries to get his son back and avoid the police.

It Takes a Thief is a much rougher film than the kind Marilyn Monroe was doing, and the role of Billy gave Mansfield an outlet to stretch her acting chops. She gives a very compelling and believable performance that should make her critics eat their words. However, like some of Koch Vision's other classic releases, this one is not from the Original Source material, but rather a truncated version probably created for television broadcast. The Challenge had an Original running length of 101 minutes, but this DVD is only 70 minutes long. I can only imagine what that missing 31 minutes might contain, and I can only hope that it will once again see the light of day.

The DVD:

Picture: The B&W movie is presented in 4:3 Full Screen. The picture is grainy and severely damaged. Everything tends to be look very soft focus, with some noticeable artifacting as well as contrast issues with blacks often appearing gray.

Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, which is as damaged as the picture with a lot of distortion throughout. In several instances, the audio quality is so bad that dialogue is often garbled.

Extras: There is a Cover Gallery from Koch Visions' Sirens of Cinema Collection.

Conclusion: As with Koch Vision's release of Too Hot to Handle, It Takes a Thief is a flawed release. This DVD is part of Koch Vision's Cinema Sirens Collection, and as such one would expect at least an attempt to obtain the Original Source material. Instead they have taken an edited print of the British version (known as The Challenge), which ran for a full 31 minutes longer. Sadly, that fact, combined with the sub-par video and audio quality, make me hesitate to even recommend this as a Rental. Instead, I can only hope that some day a Distributor will eventually do a full restoration of the Uncut, Original The Challenge.