she is indeed a real psychic. He calls the police to collect the reward for capturing the kidnappers and finding the jewels. A smiling Blanche winks at the camera. Cast Karen Black as Fran Bruce Dern as George Lumley Barbara Harris as Blanche Tyler William Devane as Arthur Adamson/Edward Shoebridge Cathleen Nesbitt as Julia Rainbird Ed Lauter as Joseph P. Maloney Katherine Helmond as Mrs. Maloney Nicholas Colasanto as Victor Constantine Edith Atwater as Mrs. Clay William Prince as Bishop Wood Marge Redmond as Vera Hannagan Production The film was adapted for the screen by Ernest Lehman, based on Victor Canning's 1972 novel The Rainbird Pattern. Lehman wanted the film to be sweeping, dark and dramatic, but Hitchcock kept pushing him toward lightness and comedy. Lehman's screenplay earned him a 1977 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The novel on which the film is based had earlier been rejected by Lehman, to whom it had been submitted as a potential project for him to either produce or direct, or both. Hitchcock's other collaboration with the screenwriter, North by Northwest (1959), was followed by several aborted projects. Lehman had incurred the director's anger by declining an offer to write the screenplay for No Bail for the Judge, a thriller set in London intended to star Audrey Hepburn, Laurence Harvey and actor John Williams. Although Hitchcock eventually had a fine screenplay, and pre-production (location scouting and costumes) was at an advanced stage, the film was never made; Hepburn became pregnant and Hitchcock turned to another project, Psycho (1960), instead. By September 1973, Ernest Lehman had been persuaded to do the adaptation again — Hitchcock explained that he intended to keep only the bare-bones of Canning's novel and to relocate the story from England to California. One of the early decisions was to drop Canning's title and the project was branded Deceit. Partway through filming, Variety confirmed in mid-July 1975 that the film had been retitled Family Plot. Hitchcock, who often liked to specify the locales of his films by using on-screen titles or by using recognizable landmarks, deliberately left the story's location unspecific, using sites in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. The chase scene in the movie, which writer Donald Spoto called a spoof on car chases prevalent in films at the time, was filmed on the extensive Universal backlot. The restaurant used in the film was also built