Hey, guess what? I love another Alfred Hitchcock film. Every Hitchcock film I have seen before, I would want to see again. The master’s follow-up to PSYCHO isn’t as good as its predecessor, but it’s still a delightful thriller that has genuine scares and tension.
Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren, MARNIE) is a beautiful socialite who has a meet-cute moment with lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor, GIANT) in a pet store. She pretends to be a worker there and Mitch plays along even though he knows exactly whom she is. She’s known as a practical joker and he doesn’t like her public persona. As a way to prove him wrong and impress him, Melanie finds out where he lives and plans to buy two love birds for his 11-year-old sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright, THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK), whose birthday is that weekend.
Undaunted by learning that Mitch spends his weekends 60 miles away, Melanie travels to Modega Bay to drop off the love birds. This leads to her spending the weekend in the small ocean-side town and getting thrust into the strange events of unexplained bird attacks. Everyone in town is leery of the new rich woman in town, especially Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette, TV’s THE BOB NEWHART SHOW), a schoolteacher with a crush on Mitch, and Lydia Brenner (Jessica Tandy, COCOON), Mitch’s possessive mother.
The well-established characters and the detail of their actions helps set up the framework for the bird attacks. The characters and their relationships with each other is what helps add to the tension of the horror elements. Hitchcock creates tension between the characters without a bird in sight. Hitchcock knows so well that horrible things happening to people isn’t as scary as the threat of horrible things happening to people. He so brilliantly sets up the attacks and builds one upon another. When Mitch, Lydia, Cathy and Melanie are holed up in the Brenner house, the first sound of flapping wings is gut-wrenching.
As with all of Hitchcock’s films, the cinematography is first rate. The film contains one of my favorite shots of all time — a high look over the city with a fire burning below and seagulls beginning to fill the screen.
Hitchcock personally groomed model Hedren (Melanie Griffith’s mom) for her first screen performance and she is quite good. Too bad the director’s possessiveness turned ugly and he ruined Hedren’s career when she wanted to get away from him. It’s also nice to see the legendary Tandy in a role that is very different than the roles she typically played at the end of her career. In addition, it’s interesting to see Cartwright — who played the prudish townswoman in EASTWICK and the other female crew member in ALIEN — in a preteen performance. THE BIRDS is a wonderful thriller that has a slow build and creates unease in unlikely places.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
