The Birds (1963)

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Hello, welcome to yet another negative review of a much beloved film. Years ago, after watching yet another AFI Top 100 Whatever Films of All Time, I realized I had never seen "The Birds." I think Hitchcock's best film was "Rear Window" and his worst was "Topaz,"- I can safely place this above "Topaz."

Tippi Hedren plays Melanie, a spoiled newspaper owner's daughter. She sees attorney Mitch (Rod Taylor) in a pet store looking for lovebirds for his eleven year old sister. Melanie pretends to work at the store and tries to help him, he is on to her and pretends to be helped. Mitch calls her bluff and leaves, and Melanie takes down his license number and buys the lovebirds for him anyway, hoping to surprise him. She goes to his apartment, but he is in Bodega Bay for the weekend, so she drives up with the dang birds. She goes to his house, walks in the front door, leaves the birds and a note for the little sister, then leaves. Let's pause. Hedren's character is a criminal, a pathological liar, and a stalker. This may have been 1963's way of meeting cute and falling in love, but today I found Hedren's pursuit a little discomforting. The entire love angle here is forced. Mitch finds Melanie and pursues her back to Bodega Bay. Melanie again lies about why she is there, saying she is visiting Annie (Suzanne Pleshette), a local school teacher she met when she came into town. I checked my television, making sure I was watching the right video, since the only bird attack so far was Melanie getting conked on the head by a gull, and that was not hard enough to satisfy me. Melanie stays with Annie, who also fell for Mitch years before. Mitch goes home to cold-as-ice mom Lydia (Jessica Tandy) and little sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright). Eventually, the birds begin attacking.

Poor special effects also begin to attack. There is one good scene where Mitch's home is attacked by wrens or something, but the scene goes on way too long as the actors unconvincingly dodge birds that are not there. The silliest scene involves the attack at the school. I know Hitchcock hated location filming, and it shows. The children are running in place against a back screen process while shots of birds are superimposed over that- very poor effects that made me laughing more than anything. We also get questionable scenes where the citizens of the small town do not believe Melanie and Mitch's stories of the attacking birds, never mind the house attack, a neighbor is killed by birds, and the school is attacked. Anyone who has ever been in a small town knows the opposite would be true. Most of the cast at this point makes special mention of the fact that they do not know why the birds are attacking. If one person says it, fine. But when at least half a dozen cast members say it at least half a dozen times, I figured Hitchcock was pandering to an audience that did have legitimate questions about why, especially after the tacked on explanation about Norman's behavior that almost ruined "Psycho." Curious viewers want to know. The movie ends on an unsatisfying note, and I was stumped. The film just has no point. There are some creepy shots, like the beaks pecking through the door at the house, and some beautiful shots of the sunset, but the special effects here are pretty awful. Just because Hitchcock directed it should not be an excuse. Taylor, Tandy, Pleshette, and Cartwright are fine, but Hedren's character is so weird, and she does not play it well. She is often stiff, and her scenes where she is in shock after a bird attack is, again, unintentionally funny. Hitchcock was a genius with the camera, but often he picked some poor scripts to do ("Topaz" or "Family Plot" anyone?). You may now return to regularly scheduled Hitchcock worship. Followed by "The Birds II: Land's End."

Stats:
(1963) 119 min. (* *) out of five stars
-Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
-Screenplay by Evan Hunter from the story by Daphne Du Maurier
-Cast: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy, Veronica Cartwright, Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw, Ruth McDevitt, Lonny Chapman, Doodles Weaver, Joe Mantell, Karl Swenson, Malcolm Atterbury
(PG-13)