AnFOI request file by internet site MuckRockyielded 18 pages of the FBI ’s file on director Alfred Hitchcock . Surprisingly , the notes on the director were n’t concerned with the obvious : the violent content of his workings , that he was a alien , etc . They were far more weirdly personal .
The MuckRock posthas both the FBI and ( un - redacted ) National Archives versions of the Thomas Nelson Page , but the most interesting nugget start out with correspondence from October 1960 , concerning an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents titled “ A Crime for Mothers . ” The patch : A woman enlists a private investigator to kidnap and hold for ransom a missy she believes is the same shaver she give up for espousal years ago . At some compass point , the PI , who ’s really working for the adopted parents , enlists an FBI agent pal to “ explain abduct [ sic ] law ” to the woman .
Really , it sound like kind of an average installment ( the construction : it ’s all a artifice to teach the woman a lesson , and the “ kidnap dupe ” is the PI ’s own girl ) , but the mien of an FBI agent was enough to draw the Bureau ’s ira — and the book had to be rewritten to whole eliminate the character , and rewritten again to remove a line of descent of dialog that merely denote to the FBI in passing . “ A offence for Mothers ” ( which , by the way , was take by the glass ceiling - shattering Ida Lupino),first aired January 24 , 1961 ; here ’s theimdb description :
Jane and Ralph Birdwell get an unexpected and unwelcome sojourn from Mrs. Meade , their foster daughter ’s biological mother . It ’s been seven years since they took duty for the fille , but an adoption was never formalise as Mrs. Meade had merely disappear . Meade now wants money from the Birdwells and jeopardise to sue to get her daughter back . A private detective suggest that Mrs. Meade just take her daughter and demand $ 25,000 from the Birdwells to give her back . She tally but things do n’t quite go as the planned .
Nope , no FBI acknowledgment here — nor in the other fistful of episodes cited in the FBI files , the scripts of which were cautiously scrutinized and edited if take for necessary . It ’s somewhat amazing to call up that the FBI care so much about its portraiture in 1961 , considering the bit of TV shows since that have made agent their central characters — and not always show them in a positive spark , as longtime directorJ. Edgar Hoover would have insistedduring Hitchcock ’s blossom .
[ ViaMuckRock ]
AP Photo by Robert E. Dear
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