With this edition of Reel Classics, we will revisit one of my favorite filmmakers, Alfred Hitchcock; this time looking at the suspense-filled The Birds. It stars Tippi Hedren in her film debut as a rich young socialite from San Francisco. Rod Taylor portrays a successful attorney, Mitch Brenner, who lives and practices in San Francisco but spends the weekends in the northern California community of Bodega Bay. There, his mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy) and young sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) reside.
As the film opens, we see Melanie walking down the street in San Francisco and heading into a pet shop. While in the shop, Mitch Brenner enters, seeking to buy a pair of lovebirds for his young sister’s eleventh birthday. Melanie does not know him, but he recognizes her from a previous court case where she appeared for a practical joke she had played that did not go as planned.
Mitch decides to play his own practical joke and approaches her, pretending to mistake her for an employee. She goes along with the mistake and quickly demonstrates a complete ignorance of birds. He laughs and lets her know he knows who she is and has seen her in court. He tells her he has also read of her ventures in the various gossip columns before leaving the store without making a purchase.
Melanie spontaneously decides to purchase the birds and provide them to the young girl. She drives to Bodega Bay, finds out the family’s address, and seeks out the local school teacher, Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), to learn the name of the young sister Cathy.
Melanie intends to leave the birds for Cathy with a note and return to San Francisco without any contact with the family. She rents a boat to get across the bay and enters the house unseen. However, Mitch, who was outside when she arrived, finds the birds and the note and sees her boating across the bay back to the pier. He jumps in his vehicle and races down the road to the pier before she docks. At this point in the story, we see the first entrance of “the birds.” For some unknown reason, a seagull swoops down and attacks Melanie before she arrives at the pier. Mitch immediately helps her and addresses the wound.
They strike up a friendship and he invites her to stay for Cathy’s birthday party the next day. She arranges to stay with Annie Hayworth, who has a room for rent. From Annie she learns that Annie and Mitch were once lovers, but the relationship was sabotaged by his interfering and possessive mother, Lydia. She learns that after the death of Mitch’s father, the mother has become more and more possessive of her son. Melanie also soon begins to experience Lydia’s scorn.
As the story progresses, we see additional attacks by various birds—gulls, crows, sparrows, and others. The attacks become more fierce and violent and put the community of Bodega Bay in a panic. These attacks include gulls attacking the children at the birthday party and sparrows invading the Brenner home through the chimney. Suspense and fear build as no one seems able to explain the cause of these attacks by varied species of birds.
As the fear intensifies with the town folk, so does the paranoia. Some begin to think Melanie has something to do with it, as it started after her arrival. One of the patrons in a local diner confronts Melanie in a fit of panic as she clutches her two frightened children. She screams, “Why are they doing this? Why are they doing this? They said when you got here, the whole thing started. Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? I think you’re the cause of all of this. I think you’re evil. Evil!”
As the story progresses, the fear grows, and survival becomes the concern. Mitch and Melanie, along with Cathy and Lydia, are barricaded inside the Brenner home. The birds have gathered outside, and the attack seems inevitable. As usual, no spoilers here.
The Birds was based on a short story written by Daphne du Maurier. She was also the author of the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, which were developed into films by Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock had initially purchased the rights to the story in 1955 to use in his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents but later opted to develop it into a feature film. In du Maurier’s story, the setting is Cornwall in Britain, and the main character is a man trying to protect his wife and two children from the attacks. Hitchcock changed the setting and the characters but kept the story of the unexplained attacks.
The special effects used in the film were enormous and elaborate. In fact, the lone Oscar nomination was for special effects (though it lost out to Cleopatra). Hitchcock once stated in an interview on The Dick Cavett Show that over three thousand birds had been trained for use in the film. Though puppets and dolls were also utilized, many scenes involved live birds. In the interview, Hitchcock also stated that they found the ravens to be the most clever and the gulls to be the most vicious. Reportedly, most of the birds used in the long shots were fake, while live birds were used in scenes with the actors.
Tippi Hedren experienced physical and emotional wounds from her scenes with the live birds. In one scene where she is attacked by birds in a room, it took seven days to film, though the actual scene in the movie was a little more than a minute. She said, “It was the worst week of my life.” Hitchcock wanted live birds to be used in that scene, and trained seagulls were repeatedly thrown at her. At one point in the scene when she was on the floor, live birds were tied to her with elastic bands. Hedren said she had one of her eyes clawed during the scene. After filming that scene, production was shut down for several days while she recuperated in a hospital from both her physical and emotional injuries. After that scene, Cary Grant, who was visiting the set that day, approached her. Having watched the scene, he told her, “You’re one brave lady.” Cary Grant had been considered early on by Hitchcock for the role of Mitch Brenner.
As mentioned earlier, this was Tippi Hedren’s first film. Hitchcock signed her to a contract after seeing her in a television commercial. In the commercial, she walks down the street, and a man whistles at her. She turns her head and smiles at him. Hitchcock used this same scene in the film’s opening—he considered it an inside joke.
And speaking of the opening scene, this is where we will find Hitchcock in his anticipated cameo. Those familiar with Hitchcock films know that he always appears in a cameo. As Melanie enters the pet shop, we see him exiting with his two dogs on a leash.
The Birds was successful at the box office, reportedly making it one of the top twenty films of 1963. The critic for The New York Times described it as “a horror film that should raise the hackles on the most courageous and put goose-pimples on the toughest hide.” The Village Voice critic wrote, “Drawing from the relatively invisible literary talents of Daphne du Maurier and Evan Hunter, Alfred Hitchcock has fashioned a major work of cinematic art.”
The screenplay was written by Evan Hunter, a well-known detective story writer under the pen name Ed McBain. Du Maurier reportedly was unhappy that Hitchcock changed the setting from her favored Cornwall to northern California.
When the film premiered in London, loudspeakers were placed in the trees near the entrance to the theater, and movie-goers were greeted by the sound of flapping wings and screeching birds.
As is the case with many films discussed here, time has seen an increase in the reputation of the film. Its television première in the United States was on NBC in January 1968. It became the most-watched film on TV at that time, with an audience share of 59%. The critics’ consensus on Rotten Tomatoes states: “Proving once again that build-up is the key to suspense, Hitchcock successfully turned birds into some of the most terrifying villains in horror history.”
The American Film Institute identifies The Birds as the seventh greatest thriller in American cinema. In 2016, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
While Hitchcock was developing the film, an interesting and ironic occurrence happened in northern Monterey Bay in California (not far from the site of the film’s Bodega Bay). In 1961, the area was overwhelmed with thousands of birds that appeared disoriented and flew into buildings and vehicles. The streets were filled with dead birds. Hitchcock incorporated some of these events into his film. The story was a front-page item in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
I find it interesting that the film is identified as part of the horror genre. Reviewers refer to it as a horror film, and the Clark County Public Library has it listed under the horror genre. I personally never thought of The Birds as horror. To me, it was suspense. In his clever way, Hitchcock builds the suspense within the story until you are on the edge of your seat by the end. It starts with one stray gull sweeping down on Melanie, and by the end, thousands of birds flocked together, awaiting the next attack.
Hitchcock never gave the audience any rational explanation for why this was happening. He built on the fear of the unknown and uncertainty of it all, increasing the viewers’ anxieties. Toward the film’s end, a radio announcer states, “It appears that the bird attacks come in waves with long intervals between. The reason for this does not seem clear yet.”
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I’m sure that as the viewers left the theater and walked out into the street, they may have been a bit more attentive to that group of birds sitting on the telephone wires. I know I was.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates The Birds at 7.6 out of 10. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 94% and an Audience Score of 83%.
In searching my Roku device, I found the film streaming for free on the “Classic Movies and TV” app. There is also a DVD copy on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library.
Information for this Reel Classic review was gathered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and Wikipedia.
I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trailer below, let me remind you that if you enjoy these classic movies, please join me on the second Tuesday of each month at 6 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.” I present a classic comedy film, usually accompanied by a vintage cartoon. Popcorn and drinks are provided. More information about the next film is available on the library’s website, Facebook page, and WinCity Voices Facebook page.
