Hitchcock approached his director’s chair and Margaret wondered if he was going to try to sit on it, which seemed like a risky venture. He did not. Margaret watched as the director stared at Hedren, eyeballing her as if she were a juicy steak. He licked his lips, which gave Margaret the shivers.

“Places, everyone,” the director said.

A chubby male assistant stepped in front of the camera with the clapboard and slammed it down. The three prop men in the cage grabbed ravens, one in each rubber-gloved hand. An assistant director began shouting out the familiar orders as lights blazed, and through a bullhorn, someone called, “Action.”

Hedren slowly opened the door to the attic and looked up at the hole in the roof as she walked in. She gasped and lifted her flashlight as the three prop men began throwing live birds at her. First a raven flew at Hedren; it turned away at the last second. It was followed by a seagull that was propelled into her hair before it could get its bearings and flap away. The stagehands pummeled Hedren with one bird after another. After each bird flew off, whether it had hit the actress or not, it continued circling around the attic in a frenzy, a tornado of feathers filling the room. Hedren was gasping, crying out; Margaret couldn’t tell what was acting and what was real and she didn’t know if Hedren could either. Margaret looked at LeGrue, who was as still as an oak, her eyes on what the prop men were doing, seemingly professional and focused on the task at hand because to contemplate anything beyond that would be its own sort of psychological horror.

Even later that day, on the set of Manchurian Candidate, watching Charlie trudge up the hill to light Sinatra’s cigarette, Hedren was all Margaret could think about.

After Hitchcock yelled, “Cut,” it was clear that she’d been largely uninjured, though she was hyperventilating. Cary Grant—visiting from a nearby soundstage—declared her the bravest lady he’d ever met.

“I don’t know if that’s the word for it,” Hedren had replied. And indeed, to Margaret, Hedren’s plight was all about sheer survival.

The survival of his marriage, meanwhile, was all Charlie could think about as he climbed the hill. Should he tell Margaret about the photograph of him and Lola? Surely she would believe him when he told her he’d immediately gotten out of the hot tub. He was an honorable man and had never strayed in sixteen years of marriage. He expected that she would be more likely to focus on his recklessness and stupidity. She already knew that they were in a world where he didn’t belong, and now he was a murder suspect. Yes, he would have to tell her.