My Review of The Birds (1963)

 

Written by Evan Hunter

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Mrs Bundy: "Birds are not aggressive creatures, Miss. They bring beauty to the world."

If there was a movie that expertly disproved that following quote, it would be this one. At some point, I might do a Top 10 Hitchcock movies list on Twitter. This movie alone will likely be in Top 5 of any potential list.

Anyways the movie in question, based on the short story by Daphne Du Maurier of the same name certainly has romance on the brain from the very first scene in question. The scene being something of a meet cute between socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) and lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a pet store of all places.

Not only that but the two soon find themselves talking about practical jokes and lovebirds. The latter being something that Melanie would then purchase in order to get into Mitch's good graces as she decided to make a visit to Bodega Bay where the latter was spending the weekend with his family and younger sister, Cathy (Veronica Cartwright).

A simple visit for a potential hook up, so what could go wrong? Well, given the title of the movie, how about some very violent birds for starters? Despite having ornithologist Mrs Bundy (Ethel Griffies) point out that birds were not aggressive, the events of the film proved the exact opposite here.

By the time we got had gotten into the second half of the film, not only was Melanie herself getting terrorised by the birds but so were the locals of Bodega Bay themselves. Even a former lover of Mitch's named Annie (Suzanne Pleshette) and his overbearing mother, Lydia (Jessica Tandy) fell victim at different times to the not so friendly birds. 

With Bodega Bay being ravaged by the creatures, it was largely down to Melanie, Mitch and Cathy to get out of the seaside village, take the only non violent birds with them (Cathy's lovebirds) and leave everyone else behind to deal with the unexplained attack itself.

- Evan Hunter was asked by Alfred Hitchcock to add more to the script while also retaining the lack of explanation for the birds attack.

- The movie was also inspired by a real life mass bird attack in Capitola, California in 1961. The real explanation was toxic algae but that was unknown back then.

- A sequel titled, The Birds II: Land's End came out in 1986 and Tippi Hedren appeared as a different character.

- Chronology: The movie came out in 1963 and was set in San Francisco and Bodega Bay.

The Birds absolutely delivered on it's premise, proving that the feathered kind really can be deadly for no reason whatsoever. Add a great use of locations and a commanding lead performance from Tippi Hedren and this one's a classic.

Rating: 9 out of 10