The United States Library of Congress chose to preserve the film The Birds (1963) for preservation in 2016. As quoted by the Internet Movie Database, the Alfred Hitchcock film follows a “wealthy San Francisco socialite [who] pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.” This PG-rated examination of fear is worth your view.
(Alfred Hitchcock directed the film The Birds).
Melanie Daniels, as played by Tippi Hedren, wealthy San Francisco socialite. We first meet Melanie as she looks to retrieve birds she was looking to care for at a pet store in San Francisco, California. While she is waiting on the party due to deliver said birds at the pet store, Melanie becomes intrigued by a suitor named Mitch Brenner who comes calling upon her.
(Tippi Hedren as Melanie Daniels in The Birds).
Rod Taylor stars in The Birds as Mitch Brenner, who frequents San Francisco as well the small town north of San Francisco named Bodega Bay. Writer Daphne du Maurier, who wrote the short story that became the feature film, had set the story in the English countryside. We come to experience Mitch as a charming ladies man and father who shares a Bodega Bay household with his mother and daughter. Melanie Daniels brings a pair of love birds to Mitch, creating the fiction that the birds are for Mitch’s daughter Cathy.
(Rod Taylor as Mitch Brenner in The Birds).
Before meeting Mitch Brenner or his family in Bodega Bay, the story Alfred Hitchcock shares in The Birds introduces some characters and local color surrounding Bodega Bay. The subterfuge of a story that Melanie Daniels makes in offering the love birds to Mitch’s daughter Cathy first requires that Melanie visits the school teacher of the Bodega Bay School, Annie Hayworth. Suzanne Pleshette portrays Annie Hayworth, who came to Bodega Bay as a love interest of Mitch Brenner. Annie still has feelings for Mitch, yet is willing to help Melanie as she suffers the first bird attack on the island while Melanie also pursues a relationship with Mitch.
(Suzanne Pleshette as Annie Hayworth in The Birds).
Jessica Tandy stars as Lydia Brenner, the domineering mother of Mitch Brenner. After multiple odd experiences with birds randomly attacking, it is Lydia who experiences the first large emotional shock of the film when she visits a neighboring farm when seeking help with the erratic behavior of chickens on the Brenner farm. Lydia finds the farmer’s eyeless corpse in his bedroom, who was the victim of a clear bird attack.
(Jessica Tandy as Lydia Brenner in The Birds).
When this information is shared with the family, Melanie aims to care for an emotionally vulnerable Lydia by offering tea and comfort. The notion of a relationship between Mitch and Melanie is broached in this, and a thawing in the relationship between the two ladies begins. Shortly thereafter, the notion for where Cathy Brenner, Mitch’s daughter, is raised. Melanie heads to Bodega Bay School in an attempt to assuage the Lydia’s concerns.
(Veronica Cartwright as Cathy Brenner in The Birds).
Melanie Daniels heads to the school to find Annie Cartwright teaching a one-room school house full of kids fully engaged in a lesson full of singing. Cathy Brenner, as portrayed by Veronica Cartwright, is engaged in the lesson. It is only after Melanie assesses the situation as normal, and then sits down to a smoke, that crows begin to assemble atop the playground equipment in anticipation of another attack. Melanie and Annie work together to have the school kids flea the birds, which in turn prompts another bird attack.
(Ethel Griffies as Mrs. Bundy in The Birds).
In the aftermath of the school attack, Melanie lands in a diner where she aims to get word of the event to Mitch Brenner and others who can help to address the situation. The folks in the diner overhear the conversation, aiming to offer various thoughts and opinions surrounding whether birds are likely to attack. A voice that is given much credibility in the opinion sharing, yet is largely rejected as not being born out by the facts of the occasion of several attacks, is ornithologist Mrs. Bundy. It was Mrs. Bundy, as portrayed by Ethel Griffies, the Drunken Doomsayer in the Diner as portrayed by Karl Swenson, and others who served to raise the tension that ultimately helps raise the tension towards the closing climax of the movie.
(Karl Swenson as Drunken Doomsayer in the Diner in The Birds).
The major drive of The Birds brings the tension of at least three more attacks following the diner scene. At least one more major character in the film meets an untimely end to the birds. The resolution of the film comes with the attempted departure of some main characters from Bodega Bay. The fact that the reason behind for the bird attacks is not resolved, and if the remaining major characters experience a satisfying end to the tension raised, are two points I will withhold. I will admit that I appreciate the manner in which the film comes to a conclusion. I rate The Birds at 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars.
Matt – Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Matt Lynn Digital 