The Birds (1963)

In a case of life imitates art we have Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) who is our passport into the story of The Birds. Hedren plays a gossip column item, similar to today's Paris Hilton, who seems to be famous for being famous.

The movie doesn't have much backstory, except for casual statements by the characters as they interact, but we join Hedren as she enters a San Francisco bird shop hoping to pick up a bird she ordered. She is told "it's on the way," and when the proprietor goes to phone, a customer (Rod Taylor The Time Machine) enters the shop.

Hedren decides to prank him acting like she works there when he asks her about love birds. She doesn't know that he is a lawyer who recognizes her from all the tabloid photographs. So he spoofs her back. When he tires of this he reveals the joke and tells her he wishes she was jailed for the stunt she pulled involving a plate glass window. He leaves without buying any birds. All of this is typical Hitchcock maguffin stuff to get the two characters together, but the caged birds are a foreshadowing of what is to come.

At this point, the story plays out like a typical screwball comedy - boy meets girl, etc. Hedren buys some lovebirds and finds out the lawyer's address about 60 miles north. She sneaks into his house by boating across the bay and leaves the lovebirds in the house. Then she retreats to her boat and gets out a distance and watches until he finds the birds and runs outside. He calls her back and a gull attacks her. This scene is marred to me by the irritating process photography Hitchcock always used, showing the figure in the rocking boat with a grainy projected background. He also showed her driving her little convertible sports car (what else would she drive?) in the same fake process shots that really do not hold up well. That is strike one against this movie, in my view.

Anyway, the birds begin their attacks in solo efforts for a while, then, of course, come the massed attacks by gulls, crows, and even sparrows zooming in like Stuka dive bombers.

Hitchcock does make good use of the trained birds with portentous shots of them roosting on a Jungle Jim, or covering the eaves of a house or power lines. The attacks are usually pretty effective except when the pecking occurs; I find that fairly unrealistic. Especially when the character is shown covering their head with their arms and the close-up shows their hand extended palm open, being pecked, then back to the defensive head covering shot. The shots just don't match up and take me out of the moment. You could quibble about the clouds of attacking birds superimposed on the action but I think those shots are still pretty effective.

As in many Hitchcocks the cast is full of emotionally damaged characters. Hedren is pretty much OK, other than being spoiled, but Rod Taylor is smothered by a dependent mother (Jessica Tandy) whose counterpoint is Suzanne Pleshette, another young lady who tried to win Taylor, but lost to the mother; echoing the Norman Bates - mother relationship in Psycho. Tandy even sits there in a pose similar to Mrs Bates as a reminder. Pleshette stuck around just to be near the object of her desire - sick, huh? Anyway, these two subordinate characters are far better in their parts than the headliners Hedren and Taylor. They are good looking but exhibit no real chemistry and neither one has enough shtick to keep interest long. The supporting cast is full of familiar faces who are used to add the black comedy Hitchcock so loved. Unlike most of Hitchcock’s works, The Birds is not scored, but the bird calls and flapping noises form the background sound.

The story seems to be a critique on how we keep birds in cages for our amusement, however at the end of the story the humans have been caged, and in fact the cage has been violated and the humans must flee, leaving the birds masters of the playing field. The Birds was cutting edge horror when filmed and pointed the way that horror would go in the future, but today it is a pretty tired old vestige of what it once was.

The Universal DVD contains the two hour movie, in color, in 1.85:1 theatrical format. There are some good special features including a documentary with the director's daughter Pat Hitchcock, production notes, etc. The trailer is a classic with Hitchcock giving one of his patented monologues that will double you up with laughter.

All in all, even with the cutting edge ideas presented, I have to give The Birds an average rating with the understanding that Hitchcock and horror fans will be required to view this.

More Hitchcock –

Notorious
Rear Window
Vertigo
Marnie
Frenzy

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV