The Birds

"I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. Why, if that happened, we wouldn't stand a chance! How could we possibly hope to fight them?"
-Mrs. Bundy, the elderly ornithologist

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Daphe Du Maurier (story), Evan Hunter (screenplay)
Starring: Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor
Release Date: 1963
Genre: Horror, Suspense
Runtime: 1 hr, 59 mins
Awards: 1 Oscar Nomination

Tomatometer Rating: 97%
My Rating: 0 stars

The Birds @ IMDb
The Birds @ Rotten Tomatoes

Note: I’m not incredibly familiar with Hitchcock’s work, though I plan to solve that problem this coming weekend by watching both Vertigo and Psycho. Perhaps that will give me more of an insight into this film.

I simply did not get this movie. There. I said it.

The Birds follows Melanie Daniels (Hedren) as she ventures out from her native San Francisco to far off Bodega Bay without any motivation at all other than to briefly pay a visit to a man whom she hardly knows: Mitchell Brenner (Taylor). Upon her arrival weird things begin to happen as, without any motivation at all, birds randomly begin praying on the men, women, and children of Bodega Bay.

It is painfully obvious from the film’s opening moments that Hitchcock was not the least bit worried with the caliber of acting present in his masterpiece. Tippi Hedren is one-faced and one-voiced through the entire film; she does not listen and react as people normally do in conversation, but rather waits for her specified pause and reads her lines. The Hedren-induced monotony goes untreated, and at times she looks like an amateur next to tween Veronica Cartwright as Mitchell Brenner’s twelve-year-old sister Cathy.

Hitchcock’s multi-person dialogue scenes are not much better; in fact, I counted perhaps two people in the entire film who give remotely interesting performances, one of them being Taylor as Mitchell Brenner. The other is a relatively untouched character, an older woman who, as an ornithological expert, tells of the reasons why the supposed “bird attacks” on Bodega Bay are not at all possible. She is convincing (which was, by itself, certainly a breath of fresh air) and even riveting, yet her performance is short and, like much of the film, leaves the audience unfulfilled.

All of that being said, however, The Birds was not meant to be an exposition of fine dramatics, but rather a thrilling work with its strengths rooted in suspense and visual effects. In this, though, the film is once again a disappointment.

In terms of the visual effects, I do not really feel as if I can properly judge since I am not an expert in the standards of the time. That being said, I don’t see how anyone can find anything that Hitchcock can put on the screen scary. There. I said it.

In terms of suspense, yes, Hitchcock leaves the audience on the edge of their seats begging to see what happens next, but it is what happens next that disappoints. There is no climax, no incredible end to the suspense. Basically, I think that Hitchcock got a little too carried away and never really finished his story. There is no great loss of emotional importance to the audience. There is no great scene of revelation in which all of the chaos is explained. At film’s end, I am left asking why. Why the birds? Why Bodega Bay? Why Melanie Daniels? Why? Hitchcock answers none of this. He merely tries and fails to scare me.

As for my last word, I’ll say this: Hitchcock’s The Birds builds suspense with a poorly acted story and slightly compelling visual effects until the film’s disappointing conclusion that leaves the viewer confused and unsatisfied.


Images care of Goroadachi.com and Trekearth.com.