When Grace Kelly retires from films to marry Prince Rainier Alfred Hitchcock looks for a similar blonde and finds her in TV model,the little known Tippi Hedren,who will star in his film adaptation of horror story 'The Birds'. Hitchcock is obsessed with Tippi sexually and,when she rebuffs his advances,sadistically puts her through five days of filming where she is attacked and injured by real birds. Hitchcock's wife Alma and his assistant Peggy are appalled but can do nothing. Tippi is resolved that she will not give in to Hitchcock despite the situation giving her nightmares. Hitchcock and Tippi make a second film,'Marnie'. Having admitted that Alma is the only woman he has ever had sex with and that he now finds her cold Hitchcock continues to pursue Tippi, bombarding her with phone calls declaring his love for her yet reminding her that he alone made her famous and she owes him. At this stage Tippi demands that her contract be terminated and an end title states that they never ...

In 1974, Eddie Dunford, comes home from South England and gets a job as a cub reporter for the Yorkshire Post. A schoolgirl has gone missing, and Eddie suspects it's one of several crimes dating back six years; the police think not and blame gypsies. Eddie digs; the police stonewall him then two of them beat him after he visits the widowed mother of one of the girls missing for a few years. When a child's body turns up at a construction site of local building magnate John Dawson, Eddie has another thread to pull. By now, he's begun an affair with Paula, the widowed mom, and he suspects collusion among Dawson, the police, and his newspaper - but what are they covering up?