The Birds (film)

The Birds
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by	Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by	Evan Hunter
Based on	story The Birds by Daphne du Maurier
Starring	Rod Taylor Jessica Tandy Suzanne Pleshette Tippi Hedren
Music by	Oskar Sala Remi Gassmann Bernard Herrmann
Cinematography	Robert Burks, ASC
Editing by	George Tomasini
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	28 March 1963 (1963-03-28)
Running time	119 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$3.5 million
Box office	$11,403,529

The Birds is a 1963 suspense/horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on the 1952 story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few days.

The film was billed as 'introducing' Tippi Hedren. It also starred Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette and a young Veronica Cartwright.

The screenplay was written by Evan Hunter. Hitchcock told him to develop new characters and a more elaborate plot, keeping Du Maurier's title and concept of unexplained birds attacks.

Plot

Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is a young wealthy socialite who meets a lawyer, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), in a San Francisco pet shop. He, looking to purchase a pair of lovebirds for his sister's eleventh birthday, pretends to mistake her for a salesperson, which infuriates her and leads her to inquire as to the reason for his behaviour. He mentions a previous encounter that he had with her. Intrigued by him, she finds the address of his home in Bodega Bay, California. She purchases a pair of lovebirds and drives to his house by sneaking across the small harbor in a motor boat, leaving the birds and a note. As she is heading back across the bay, a seagull swoops down and inflicts a cut on her head.

Over the next few days, the avian attacks continue, as Melanie's relationship with Mitch, his clinging mother, Lydia (Jessica Tandy), his younger sister, Cathy (Veronica Cartwright), and Cathy's teacher (who is also Mitch's ex-lover) Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette) develops. The second strange bird incident occurs when Melanie stays for the night at Annie's house as a gull swoops down and kills itself upon hitting the front door. The next attack occurs at Cathy's birthday party, where the children are set upon by seagulls and attacked. The following evening, sparrows invade the Brenner home. Avian violence escalates when Lydia discovers a friend dead in his bedroom with windows smashed, his eyes pecked out and dead birds everywhere. Lydia, horrified, returns to the farm where she is comforted by Mitch and Melanie. Lydia becomes concerned of Cathy and asks Melanie to check on her at the school. While Melanie waits on a bench outside the school, crows slowly gather on the playground behind her. Melanie, becoming aware of the birds, stands and looks in horror. She warns Annie, and the two attempt to evacuate the children safely. As Melanie, Annie, and the children flee from the school, the birds attack, harming several children.

Following this attack, an argument erupts at a local restaurant over this strange behavior. One resident believes the attacks are a sign of the apocalypse, but a woman chides the man and others for scaring her children. Mrs. Bundy (Ethel Griffies), an amateur ornithologist, insists that different bird species do not flock or attack together. Despite her claim, a motorist is attacked while filling his car with gasoline; as he is knocked unconscious, and the gasoline continues to pump out onto the street. Another motorist, unaware he is standing in the puddle of gasoline, disregards warnings from the people in the restaurant as he lights a cigar, and drops the match on the ground. An explosion and fire result. The birds attack as people pour from the diner to survey the damage, and Melanie is forced to take refuge in a phone booth. Mitch rescues her and they return to the restaurant, where the hysterical mother accuses Melanie of being the cause of the attacks. Melanie and Mitch later find Annie dead on her front porch and Cathy in tears, having witnessed Annie's death from inside the house.

Melanie and Mitch's family take refuge in the Brenners' house and board up the windows. The house is attacked by the birds more viciously than ever before, and at several points they nearly manage to break in. Mitch is injured when a few birds manage to break through a window and peck his hands. In the evening, when everyone else is asleep, Melanie hears noises from the upper floor. Not wanting to disturb a sleeping Mitch, Melanie takes a flashlight and investigates. Entering a room at the top of the stairs, she finds that the birds have managed to break through the roof. They violently attack her, trapping her in the room until Mitch comes to her rescue. He and Lydia tend to her, but determine she must get to the hospital in her catatonic state. A sea of birds ripple menacingly around the Brenners and Melanie as they leave the house but do not attack. The radio reports other bird attacks in nearby communities. The film concludes ambiguously, as the car slowly makes its way through seemingly infinite flocks of birds into the sunrise.

Cast

• Tippi Hedren - Melanie Daniels
• Rod Taylor - Mitch Brenner
• Jessica Tandy - Lydia Brenner
• Veronica Cartwright - Cathy Brenner
• Suzanne Pleshette - Annie Hayworth
• Ethel Griffies - Mrs. Bundy
• Charles McGraw - Sebastian Sholes
• Doreen Lang - Hysterical Mother in Diner
• Ruth McDevitt - Mrs. MacGruder
• Joe Mantell - Travelling Salesman in Diner
• Malcolm Atterbury - Deputy Al Malone
• Karl Swenson - Drunken Doomsayer in Diner
• Elizabeth Wilson - Helen Carter
• Lonny Chapman - Deke Carter
• Doodles Weaver - Fisherman Helping With Rental Boat
• John McGovern - Postal Clerk
• Richard Deacon- Mitch's City Neighbor
• Bill Quinn - Sam - Man in Diner
• Morgan Brittany - Girl in Birthday Party
• Darlene Conley - Waitress
• Dal McKennon - Sam the Cook
• Mike Monteleone - Gas Station Attendant
• Jeannie Russell - School Child
• Roxanne Tunis - Extra

• Alfred Hitchcock makes his signature cameo as a man walking dogs out of the pet store at the beginning of the film. They were two of Hitchcock's own Sealyham terriers, Geoffrey and Stanley.

Production

Development

On 18 August 1961, residents in the town of Capitola, California, awoke to find sooty shearwaters slamming into their rooftops, and their streets covered with dead birds. News reports suggested domoic acid poisoning (amnesic shellfish poisoning) as the cause. According to a local newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Alfred Hitchcock requested news copy in 1961 to use as "research material for his latest thriller".

Casting

Hitchcock planned to cast Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in the film's lead roles, but was unable to do so. He used Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren, both of whom he signed to personal contracts (only Hedren made subsequent films with Hitchcock, however).

Soundtrack

The Birds lacks a conventional incidental score, instead relying on sound effects and sparse source music in counterpoint to calculated silences. Oskar Sala and Remi Gassmann are credited with "electronic sound production and composition," and Hitchcock's previous musical collaborator Bernard Herrmann is credited as "sound consultant." Some of the bird sounds were created by Sala and Gassmann on the Mixtur-Trautonium. Source music includes the first of Claude Debussy's Deux arabesques, which Tippi Hedren's character plays on piano, and "Risseldy Rosseldy", an Americanized version of the Scottish folk song "Wee Cooper O'Fife", which is sung by the schoolchildren.

Premiere and awards

The film debuted at a prestigious invitational showing at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival with Hitchcock and Hedren in attendance. In March 1963, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City hosted an invitation-only screening of The Birds as part of a 50-film retrospective of Hitchcock's film work. The MOMA series had a booklet with a monograph on Hitchcock written by Peter Bogdanovich.

The Birds was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Special Effects. The special-effects shots of the attacking birds were done at Walt Disney Studios by animator/technician Ub Iwerks, who used the sodium vapor process ("yellow screen") which he had helped to develop. The SV process films the subject against a screen lit with narrow-spectrum sodium vapor lights. Unlike most compositing processes, SVP actually shoots two separate elements of the footage simultaneously using a beam-splitter. One reel is regular film stock and the other a film stock with emulsion sensitive only to the sodium vapor wavelength. This results in very precise matte shots compared to blue screen special effects, necessary due to "fringing" of the image from the birds' rapid wing flapping.

The film's special effects did not win an Academy Award; the winner that year was Cleopatra. Tippi Hedren received the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress in 1964, sharing it with Ursula Andress and Elke Sommer. She also received the Photoplay Award as Most Promising Newcomer. The film ranked #1 of the top 10 foreign films selected by the Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards. Hitchcock also received the Association's Director Award for the film.

Reception and interpretation

The eminent film critic David Thomson refers to The Birds as Hitchcock's "last unflawed film".

Humanities scholar Camille Paglia has devoted a book to The Birds as part of the BFI Film Classics series. She interprets the film as an ode to the many facets of female sexuality and, by extension, nature itself. She notes that women play pivotal roles in The Birds. Star Rod Taylor is defined by his relationships with his mother, sister and ex-lover -- a careful balance which is disrupted by his attraction to the beautiful Hedren.

Sequel

An unrelated sequel, The Birds II: Land's End, was released in 1994, with different actors. The movie was a direct-to-television film and received negative reviews. The film's director, Rick Rosenthal, removed his name from it, opting to use the Hollywood pseudonym Alan Smithee. Hedren appeared in the film in a supporting role, but not as her original character.

Remake

In 2007, Variety reported that Naomi Watts would star in Universal's remake of the film. The remake would also star George Clooney and would be directed by Casino Royale director Martin Campbell. The production would be a joint venture by Platinum Dunes and Mandalay Pictures. Later in 2007, Hedren stated her opposition to the remake, saying, "Why would you do that? Why? I mean, can’t we find new stories, new things to do?"

Development has been stalled since the 2007 announcement. On 16 June 2009, Brad Fuller of Dimension Films stated that no further developments had taken place, commenting, "We keep trying, but I don't know." Martin Campbell was eventually replaced as director by Platinum Dunes host Dennis Iliades in December 2009.

External links

• The Birds at the Internet Movie Database
• The Birds at the TCM Movie Database
• The Birds at AllRovi
• The Birds at Box Office Mojo
• The Birds at Rotten Tomatoes
• "The Day of the Claw" (monograph on The Birds) at Senses of Cinema
• The Birds Screenshot Gallery at Alfred Hitchcock Fans Online
• Excellent analytical summary by Tim Dirks at AMC Filmsite
• Complete script of the film
• Video Essay on "Why Do the Birds Attack?"

Audio

• Radio Memories : The Birds with Herbert Marshall (20 July 1953)
• Radio Nostalgia Network: Escape: "The Birds" (10 July 1954)