The Birds

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source: The Birds

This suspenseful shocker deals about a beautiful and rich girl named Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), at the beginning she is shopping in a San Francisco pet store when she meets Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). Mitch is looking to buy some birds for his young sister's birthday , he recognizes Melanie but pretends to mistake her for a shopkeeper. After that ,she decides to buy the birds and driving up to the pacific isolated coastal California community called Bodega Bay, where Mitch spends his weekends with his mummy (Jesica Tandy) and sister (Veronica Cartwright) . Shortly after Melanie Daniels is crossing a lake, then she is cruelly nipped by a gull. Gradually, events of bird attacks on people by pecking increases. Kids are attacked at a birthday party (where appears as little girl Morgan Brittany). Meanwhile, children are sent home from school run by teacher (Suzanne Pleshette), townspeople (Charles McGraw, Karl Swenson, Chapman) take refuge in a lunchroom, a gas station is burnt, Melanie is trapped in a phone booth, and, finally, everyone hides in homes tightly closed against repeated attacks by the birds. Hitchcock's classic about a gorgeous woman who follows a gentleman until a quiet place where suddenly happens mass bird attacks . After frightening spectators of the 60s with ¨Psycho¨ director Hitch took one more successful outing at the terror genre with this excellent movie full of subterranean hints. Exciting scenes when birds attack with death dropping fiercely , its menace magnified similarly to crop-dusting images in ¨North by Northwest¨. Interesting screenplay by Evan Hunter based on Daphne Du Maurier's (Jamica Inn,Rebecca) short story. Al always, Alfred Hitchcock cameo, this time as man walking dogs out of pet shop. Wonderful Tippi Hedren as obstinate Melanie , she's marvelous and brilliantly dressed by Edith Head , but she had a tortuous involvement to Hitch, habitual issue with his leading ladies. Acceptable special effects by Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney's usual, and Albert Whitlock in pictorial designs and the future director John Bud Cardos as bird wrangler. And colorful and evocative cinematography by Robert Burks, also Hitchcock's customary. Rare and strange electronic musical score fitting to bird attacks. This delightful film is stunningly directed by the master Hithcock. Followed by a lousy and cheesy sequel in 1994 titled ¨The birds II : land's end¨ by Rick Rosenthal under ordinary pseudonym as Alan Smithee with Brad Johnson, Megan Gallaher and again Tippi Hedren. Rating : Not for squeamish but well worth seeing because it is an immortal classic movie. This is Hitchcock at his best.

Melanie Daniels meets Mitch Brenner at a pet shop where he has come to buy some birds for his young sister. They have a conflict of words but he sparks her interest and she travels up to his small town to see him again. Daniels stays in the town for the weekend despite the tension between her and Brenner's mother. However this is not the only source of worry as the locals begin to notice that the birds are acting out of character and showing signs of aggression. I came to this film because my mother mentioned she was scared of birds as a result of seeing this when she was young. So I went for it with highs hopes that were not disappointed on the whole. The basic plot is just that – basic. But it allows plenty of disturbing scenes of bird attack as well as a nice slow build. The effects have dated and it doesn't look as impressive now, but it still has an impact. More importantly the film has a rich side-plot about themes that carry over from Psycho about mother's and sons. Not quite as far out as that film, this still has plenty of meat for anyone looking to analyse it further. Hedren is OK in the lead but I found her to be just giving the same performance as every `dangerous blonde' does in Hitchcock films. But she is the predator of the film and she does it pretty well. Taylor is a good stock B movie actor type but looking at him I couldn't help picturing Cary Grant doing the role and it took away from Taylor. Tandy looked old even then, but she does really well with a complex role of the mother. Pleshette is a little annoying but still ok Most people see this as a horror film, but it is much more than that. The ending is quite low key but it worked well with the overall feeling of menace in the birds, but it's worth remembering that this is not the ending Hitchcock wanted. His first choice, the Golden Gate bridge covered in birds, couldn't be done due to a tight budget. Overall this is a great bit of Hitchcock that works on several levels. The horror will have you sweating when walking through groups of pigeons in city centres and the subtext will keep you in the pub for several hours.

This is one of the landmark films where if you saw it in the theater when it was released, you never forgot the experience. What I'll never forget - and this is true, so help me - is that moments after I left the theater, a couple birds swooped over my head. I thought I'd have a heart attack at the age of 18!! I never forgot that. It still creeps me out. Since then, I've seen the film at least a half dozen times, both on TV, on VHS and on DVD and always found it fascinating....even 40-some years later. Sure, it doesn't pack the wallop it did when it came out, but it's still scary enough with unique, memorable scenes. THE GOOD - Those scenes with the birds becoming larger and larger in numbers while sitting on the jungle gym bars, or the telephone wires are some of the most memorable in movie history. Who can forget them, especially if one first saw this film at a young and impressionable age? The suspense and the terror that director Alfred Hitchcock mounted with these scenes are almost unparalleled in film history, so kudos to him for that. Also, even though the special-effects are dated, they were still good enough to be effective today. The birds attacking the kids can still look plenty real. The ending also was very suspenseful and a very good one. This movie is certainly one of the most unique ever made. Acting-wise, I'm sorry Tippi Hedren never made it in the business with that classically-beautiful face and pleasant demeanor. Her acting seemed okay to me, so I don't know what the deal was with her career....or lack of one. Rod Taylor, meanwhile, was fine and Suzanne Pleshette was good in a low-key role. Viewing this in '90s, it was interesting to see such a young Veronica Cartwright, someone, of course, I was unfamiliar with back in the 1960s. THE BAD - A lot of these pertain to my personal beliefs, not to the film-making. For instance, I can't stand shrill, hysterical women so Jessica Tandy's role in here as the crabby old protective mother of star Rod Taylor is extremely irritating to me and takes away from the enjoyment of the movie. I have no problem with the rest of the major players, as I mentioned above. I did not appreciate the usual cheap shot at Christians, which was becoming more and more frequent in the 1960s. The only "religious" person in the movie was some wild-eyed doomsday predictor - and drunk - at a restaurant. I'm not surprised Hitchcock, a biased pagan himself, included that in the film. It wasn't untypical of him, and it wasn't there by accident. Some of the scenes were too talky and melodramatic, mostly those with Hedren and either Taylor or Tandy but then, too much action would have spoiled the suspense, so I just put up with some of those annoying-dialog scenes and wait for the birds to re-appear! ONE LAST NOTE: When are they going to produce a good DVD of this film? The disc I owned was almost identical to the VHS, a very poor transfer. I got rid of it, but would be happy to reacquire this film with a sharp DVD transfer. It certainly deserves one.

I still have quite a few of Hitchcock classics to see, but I can already rest assured that "The Birds" will remain my all-time favorite effort by this legendary director. Being primarily a horror movie junkie, I consider this milestone to be the pioneer in the delicious 'nature revolts' sub genre. For reasons that remain unexplained throughout the entire movie, birds spontaneously launch virulent and aggressive attacks against the inhabitants of Bodega Bay; a little seaside town 90 miles away from San Francisco. Still several years after the release of this film, clever and ingenious independent horror film directors borrowed this formula and used it as an excuse to manifest practically every species of the animal kingdom as vicious killing machines, usually because of the ongoing pollution by mankind. But "The Birds" remains the original classic even though the story develops itself very slowly and the script refuses to give any type of explanation whatsoever. For nearly a full hour, the film simply focuses on the bizarre love-story between the spoiled daughter of newspaper owner and an arrogant crime attorney. She drives out to his parental house in Bodega Bay, where he spends all of his weekends, to play out a practical joke. "The Birds" then subsequently unfolds itself as a strangely compelling romance between the two aforementioned characters, but also the embittered local school teacher and the attorney's frigid mother. The interactions between these four unusual characters are often downright eerie and there isn't even a bird in sight at that moment! Meanwhile, however, the menace of our 'feathered friends' is continuously present and noticeable. The attacks gradually increase in number and intensity, like the birds are putting up some sort of strategy even though there's no obvious motive. After the virulent attack during a child's birthday party, the thriller definitely shifts into high gear, with many sequences that are righteously considered as classic by now (the schoolyard, the phone booth, the exploding gas station). Hitch's nickname 'The Master of Suspense' is justified through many individual moments here in this film, like when the entire community seeks shelter inside the café and accuses the girl of bringing this mayhem upon them. The film's brilliant anti-climax, with thousands of birds just sitting and suspiciously waiting outside the Brenner house is legendary and imitated copious of times. "The Birds" is a perplexing Hitchcock landmark, with a couple of surprisingly shocking make-up effects and a truly ominous atmosphere that still manages to send cold shivers of fright down your spine.

Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) visits Bodega Bay to give some birds to Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) a man who flirted with her once. While there her and Mitch begin to fall in love. But also strange things are happening--birds seem to be attacking people for no reason. The attacks escalate and soon Mitch, Melanie and their friends are fighting against birds who attack and kill for no reason... Some of the dialogue is awkward and it goes on way too long but this is one of Hitchcock's most frightening films. It's beautifully shot and everything looks perfect. The only real debits are the length and Hedren's lousy acting (she was beautiful--but no actress). Taylor gives out a good performance and Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette are excellent in strong supporting roles. Still, I have trouble watching this movie. I love horror films and pride myself on being able to sit through anything but I get horrified watching this film. Children are attacked twice--I seriously draw the line at films that have children being hurt. The sequences at the birthday party and (especially) the school (with the infamous jungle gym bit) are just harrowing. Seeing screaming children running in terror as birds peck at them them is not fun. But then it isn't supposed to be. Also Hedren being attacked is even worse. The poor actress had a bunch of birds tied to her by nylon rope--when the birds tried to fly away they couldn't and, naturally, attacked Hedren. They shot that for THREE DAYS until Hedren had a complete nervous breakdown. Knowing this makes the scene even harder to watch. And the discovery of Pleshette's body is hard too. Some people have complained that no reason was given for the birds attacking but seriously--what reason COULD they give? A strong, frightening film but one of Hitch's best horror films. Decidedly not for children.