The Birds (1963)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay: Evan Hunter (based on the book by Daphne du Maurier) 
Cast: ‘Tippi’ Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy 
Time: 115 minutes
Bottom-line: Delivers short bursts of powerful thrills, but is otherwise a very slow story

  Hitchcock decides to take a break from suspense thrillers, and surprises all his viewers by directing this 1963 horror-thriller ‘The Birds’. Hitchcock reinforces that building up the suspense is what gives the best thrill, but in this case, he may have given too much of a build up, thereby giving a slow story. Starring Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor in the lead roles, Hitchcock creates one of the most unexpected and horrifying villains in the film. No, the villains are not psychos, nor some strangers on a train,  not even people who dial M for murder… this time, the villains are, the birds!

Melanie Daniels (Hedren) meets Mitch Brenner (Taylor) at a bird shop. He wants some lovebirds for his sister’s 11th birthday, but the shop has none. After chatting with Melanie, she becomes intrigued by him, and tracks his house in Bodega Bay, taking a pair of lovebirds with her. He spots her while she is coming, and saves her just as some seagulls attack her. She starts a relationship with Mitch, and also befriends his sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) and mother Lydia (Tandy); she also becomes friendly with the local school teacher Anne Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette). Melanie stays at Annie’s house, when a seagull smashes itself on the door, and dying on the spot. Following this weird incident, thousands of birds repeatedly attack the city and harm people. The rest of the film is about the damage and horror the birds cause to the people of the city, and how the people try desperately to avoid them.

All the cast members: Rod Taylor as Mitch, Pleshette as Anne (left),
Tandy as Lydia (second from left), Cartwright
as Cathy (centre) and Hedren as Melanie (second from right).

Released three years after Psycho, The Birds was also another benchmark in horror films. This new idea was what makes the film great. Everyday we see thousands of birds around us, and we are like. “What’s the worst thing they can do? Poop on us?” The impact this film has on you as a viewer is so great that after one watch, you will see every bird around you with some fear. The visual effects used to show the birds are nothing compared to those of James Cameron films, but hey, James Cameron was only nine years old when this film was released. To have this much of visual effects 50 years ago was remarkable indeed.

Wanting to concentrate more on the horror, Hitchcock decided not to have any background score for this film, and this particular decision shows that this is not the usual type of film from this director. Most of the time when there are no dialogues, you hear squawking and other bird sounds. All these add to the buildup. Now, coming to the horror part, this film does not show ghosts or any supernatural stuff. The horror comes from the attack of the birds. This does not ‘sound’ scary, but only when you watch the film will you understand and feel the thrill it gives. In Psycho too Hitchcock showed a lot of blood, but here, when you see it in colour, it feels more gory and sick. In the bottom-line, I said ‘short bursts of powerful thrills’. I mean that every time the birds attack, Hitchcock creates the thrill using different camera angles, close-ups, repeated sound of the birds, and by showing some amount of blood. The sound of the birds and the other visual effects make the attacks very ‘realistic’.

A still from the film: a group of birds waiting to attack

One such attack by the birds

However, the birds don’t attack throughout the film. During the rest of the film, the story is a big bore. Most dialogues are about the romance between Mitch and Melanie and other stuff. This romance is kind of boring and dumb, but well, you need something to fill in the blank spaces: you can’t just show more and more attacks by birds. Along with effects, the acting is also pretty good. All the leads have acted in such a way that you can sense their terror and panic when so many birds attack them.

This film provides a different type of thrill. Unlike North by Northwest, or any other Hitchcock film, where suspense and thrills come from some surprise attack, or some plot twist, here, the thrills come because the attacks are so ‘scary’ and very realistic. By scary, I don’t mean that Hitchcock shows just a lot of blood and gore like say, Jaws. I mean that you feel scared or shocked that birds can actually do so much of damage. As I said before, the noise of the birds, and the ‘number’ of birds make you want to clutch something tightly,
until the attack is over. This film ranks 7th, in the American Film Institute’s list of top 100 thriller films, and only two Hitchcock films rank ahead of this: Psycho (#1) and North by Northwest (#4). Another ‘different’ thing about the film is the ending. All the other Hitchcock films have endings that are straightforward: no loose ends, the screen doesn’t suddenly cut to black… here, the ending is slightly ambiguous.

It is perhaps a common thing to see birds sitting on an electric wire...
This film turns such a sight into a fearful one!

To conclude, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ is highly entertaining and horrifying during the attacks, but is equally boring during the other scenes. If you are a Hitchcock fan, go for it, but don’t be disappointed, because, as I said, this is not a typical Hitchcockian film. The visual effects are great, and the acting is also good. Whether the story is offbeat or not, you will get a fair of amount of thrill from this film. Like Psycho, this film will have a big impact on you, and for a long time after watching the film, you will fear the birds!

My Rating: 3/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 96%