Ed McBain is the most famous pen name of author Evan Hunter, and it is the name under which Hunter did his best-known work, the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals. As Hunter, however, he wrote the novel The Blackboard Jungle (1954), on which the film starring Sidney Poitier and Glenn Ford is based, and the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963). As the 87th Precinct series grew in popularity, however, McBain's fame eventually eclipsed Hunter's, and today it is largely McBain who is remembered as the father of the police procedural.