Alfred Hitchcock, deeply brilliant, and a real creep, not just a pretend one, participated in a 1976 press conference, moderated by Richard Schickel of Time, for Family Plot. One unidentified reporter asked an interesting question, wondering if shocking actual events, like that era’s sensational Patty Hearst case, made it more difficult for a thriller writer to surprise audiences. The filmmaker ultimately acknowledged that he was “fighting headlines all the time.”