The Birds (film)
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| The Birds | |
 Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | Alfred Hitchcock |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Written by | Screenplay: Evan Hunter |
| Starring | Tippi Hedren Rod Taylor Jessica Tandy Suzanne Pleshette Veronica Cartwright |
| Music by | Oskar Sala Remi Gassmann Bernard Herrmann |
| Cinematography | Robert Burks, ASC |
| Editing by | George Tomasini |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | March 28, 1963 |
| Running time | 119 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2.5 million |
| Gross revenue | $11,403,529 |
| Followed by | The Birds II: Land's End |
The Birds (1963) is a suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock It depicts a small town in the San Francisco Bay area which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of massive bird attacks over the course of a few days.
The screenplay was written by Evan Hunter, who also wrote novels under that name and penned the 87th Precinct novels using the pseudonym Ed McBain.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Based on a novelette by Daphne Du Maurier, the plot centers around beautiful young Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a wealthy socialite whose father is an owner of a large newspaper, visits a San Francisco pet shop to pick up a mynah bird she has ordered for her aunt. There, Melanie meets Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), a lawyer who is looking for a pair of lovebirds to give to his sister. Mitch sees Melanie and then pretends to mistake her for a salesperson. Melanie acts the role, believing that she's fooling Mitch, until he reveals that he knew all along that she did not work in the shop. Melanie, infuriated, inquires as to the reason for Mitch's behavior. He mentions a previous encounter that he had with her in court.
Intrigued by Mitch, Melanie buys the lovebirds and finds the address of Mitch's home in Bodega Bay, a small village up the Pacific coast. She drives to Bodega Bay and delivers the birds by sneaking across the small harbor in a motor boat. Melanie walks right into the Brenner residence and leaves the birds on a footstool, with a note. As she is heading back across the bay, Mitch observes her through a pair of binoculars, then circles around the bay in his car to meet her -- but just as she is about to pull up to the dock, a seagull swoops down and gashes her head.
Over the next few days, the avian attacks continue, as Melanie's initial relationship with Mitch, his clinging mother, Lydia (Jessica Tandy), his 11-year-old sister, Cathy (Veronica Cartwright), and Cathy's teacher (and Mitch's former lover) Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette) further develop. The second strange bird-incident occurs when Melanie stays for the night at Hayworth's house and a gull kills itself upon hitting the front door. Then, the attacks escalate from a few birds strafing Cathy's birthday party, to a neighboring farmer's gruesome death, and then a mass attack on the town's schoolchildren.
Melanie calls her father, a newspaper publisher in San Francisco, from a bar. The conversation rivets the interest of others, who listen in. A fisherman tells her that the gulls have been following his boats. An old woman (Ethel Griffies), an amateur ornithologist, insists that the birds' attacks are an exaggeration, and that it is not possible for birds, let alone members of different avian species, to flock together and attack, as they don't possess the intelligence. Despite her words, and right outside the window, a motorist is attacked while filling his automobile with gasoline; he is knocked unconscious, the hose lands on the ground, and the gasoline continues to pump out onto the street, until it meets a man lighting a cigar. An explosion and fire result.
More deaths occur as the movie-goer is given a "bird's-eye" view of the scene, as the birds swoop in on the citizens on the town. As Melanie and others rush out of the bar to help, birds swoop down at them, and Melanie is forced to take refuge in a phone booth. Melanie is rescued by Mitch after the windows of the booth are broken by suicidal birds.
After this attack subsides, Melanie and Mitch collect Cathy at Annie's house. Noticing that crows are gathering at the school, they move quietly to Annie's home; they find Annie dead on her front porch and Cathy crying at the window.
Melanie and Mitch's family ultimately take refuge in Mitch's house, boarding up the doors and windows. In the evening, when everyone else is asleep, Melanie hears noises from the upper floor. She investigates a closed door only to find that the birds have broken through the roof. They attack her, sealing her in the room until Mitch comes to her rescue. Lydia and Mitch bandage Melanie's wounds, but determine she must get to a hospital. In a surreal and apocalyptic scene, a sea of landed birds ripples menacingly around them as they leave the house but do not attack, aside from a few isolated bites. The radio provides reports of several smaller attacks by birds in a few other communities in coastal California, and as the car slowly proceeds towards the road and picks up speed, the sea of birds parts. The film concludes with the car driving away, down the coast road and out of sight, as thousands of birds watch.
[edit] Awards
The film debuted at a prestigious invitational showing at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival[1] with Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren in attendance. It was then nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Special Effects. The effect of the flapping of the birds' wings was done in the Disney Studios by animator Ub Iwerks who used the Disney's 'yellow screen' or 'sodium vapour process' . SVP films the subject against a screen lit with narrow spectrum sodium vapour lights. Unlike most compositing processes, SVP actually shoots two separate elements of the footage simultaneously using a beam-splitter; one reel is regular photographic stock and the other an emulsion sensitive only to the sodium vapour wavelength which results in very precise mattes compared to blue-screen work.[2]
However, the 1963 Special Effects award went to 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 number one of the top ten foreign films selected by the Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards. The Association also awarded Alfred Hitchcock the Best Director Award for the film.[3]
[edit] Listen to
- Radio Memories : The Birds with Herbert Marshall (July 20, 1953)
- Radio Nostalgia Network: Escape: "The Birds" (July 10, 1954)
[edit] Factual basis
According to Nature on 27 October 2008, the behavior of the birds in the film may have been based on a real incident caused by poisoning with domoic acid. This chemical is produced when plankton are exposed to urea, a chemical which can leak out of septic tanks. Contamination can pass up the food chain, resulting in neurotoxic effects to predatory animals.
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".
[edit] Remake
In 2007, Variety reported that Naomi Watts was to star in Universal's remake of the film. The production was to be a joint venture by Platinum Dunes and Mandalay Pictures.[4] Later in 2007, original star Tippi Hedren publicly 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?"[5]
Development has been stalled since the original announcement in 2007. On June 16, 2009, Brad Fuller of Dimension Films stated no further developments have taken place, commenting that "We keep trying, but I don't know."[6]
[edit] Sequel
A Sequel to The Birds, The Birds II: Land's End, was released in 1994 starring a different cast of characters. The movie was a direct-to-tv film and met very negative reviews. It featured costar Tippi Hedren in a different role than the original film.
[edit] References
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: The Birds". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3106/year/1963.html. Retrieved on 2009-02-27.
- ^ "Top SFX shots No.6: The Birds". http://www.denofgeek.com/misc/178043/top_sfx_shots_no6_the_birds.html. Retrieved on 2009-01-02.
- ^ "69th & 70th Annual Hero Honda Bengal Film Journalists' Association (B.F.J.A.) Awards 2007-Past Winners List 1964". http://www.bfjaawards.com/legacy/pastwin/196427.htm. Retrieved on 2008-03-10.
- ^ Marc Graser, Tatiana Siegel (October 18, 2007). "Naomi Watts set for 'Birds' remake". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117974282.html?categoryid=13&cs=1. Retrieved on June 21, 2009.
- ^ Shawn Adler (October 16, 2007). "Original Scream Queen Decries ‘Birds’ Remake As Foul". MTV. http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2007/10/16/original-scream-queen-decries-birds-remake-as-foul/. Retrieved on June 21, 2009.
- ^ Worst Previews.com "The Birds" Remake May Not Happen
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Birds |
- The Birds at the Internet Movie Database
- The Birds (film) at the TCM Movie Database
- The Birds at Allmovie
- The Birds at Box Office Mojo
- The Birds at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Birds Screenshot Gallery at Alfred Hitchcock Fans Online
