Verdict: True The history of the FBI is filled with odd tales, of investigations into persons or groups of people who really shouldn't have been on the FBI's radar in the first place. Alfred Hitchcock - Hollywood bigshot, prankster, secret purveyor of laxatives - was one of those people. Though not for the reason you might have heard. Hitchcock himself told Francois Truffaut that he was under investigation for the film Notorious in the 1940s, because he'd somehow guessed that uranium - the MacGuffin in the film - was needed to make an atomic bomb, which at that point was an official government secret. Hitchcock claimed the FBI surveilled him for three months for getting the A-bomb ingredients so right; in reality, though, he wasn't investigated until 1960, when FBI head J Edgar Hoover took an interest in one of the director's Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes. The episode involved an FBI agent, which the paranoid Hoover wasn't keen on - he got the character changed to a private detective, and in the process took micro-managing to a whole new level.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
