Alfred Hitchcock enjoyed crafting art films within established genres. Psycho (1960) is a warped character study disguised as a B Movie. Even more extreme is The Birds (1963), an opaque thriller engineered like a monster movie.San Francisco socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) pursues hunky lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) to Bodega Bay. Shortly after arriving, Melanie's attacked by a seagull. This kick starts an unnerving series of events: chickens won't eat, gulls disrupt a birthday party, a farmer's found mutilated. After crows attack school children, Melanie and Mitch try warning the townspeople, who argue rather than address the problem. Too bad about that swarm of gulls heading for downtown...
The Birds starts comically: Melanie and Mitch's pet shop banter, sexual power plays and Melanie's countryside drive all evoke To Catch a Thief. Melanie's a rich girl desiring fulfillment; Mitch is self-righteous yet vulnerable. Ernest May keeps their interplay light, leaving supporting players like Jessica Tandy (as Mitch's clingy mom) and Suzanne Pleshette's tough teacher (and spurned love interest) to interject drama. Having established cozy domestic discord and chained passions, Hitchcock destroys them with terror only chaos can evoke.
The Birds becomes an exercise in clockwork creepiness. After an hour's build-up Bodega Bay explodes. Hitchcock handles every scene with remarkable sureness, mixing remarkable photography (the God's-eye view of descending gulls) with inexplicable bursts of violence. We don't question the logic of teachers walking children past menacing crows, or Melanie entering an enclosed attic. We're too absorbed in the appalling spectacle: a seagull tearing at a girl's neck, another child's smashed glasses (shades of Eisenstein), birds smashing en masse against a telephone booth.
Lacking a score, The Birds makes unnerving use of diegetic music and bird noise. Long scenes play bereft of music: Melanie rowing across the bay, with only the lapping oar and distant gull cries puncturing the silence. Or the schoolhouse scene, with crows slowly gathering outside as children sing incessantly. We never learn what's causing the bird attacks: a snooty ornithologist (Ethel Jeffries) proves less helpful than the alcoholic sailor (Karl Swenson). The film ends on an equally unsettling note, our protagonists alive but their fates uncertain.
Tippi Hedren is fine as a light comedy heroine living a nightmare. She's much better here than in Marnie. Rod Taylor's a charming heel. Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleschette are better, with characters that allow shades of emotion. The restaurant scenes give to colorful character actors: Charles McGraw (Spartacus), Karl Swenson (Major Dundee) and Ethel Geffries (Billy Liar). Who else but Veronica Cartwright plays Mitch's sister Cathy?
The Birds is arguably Hitchcock's last great movie: films like Marnie, Family Plot or Torn Curtain are muddled, self-parodying or dull. Even Frenzy is memorable mainly for its cold-blooded violence. Perhaps Hitchcock grew lazy with the Cahiers crowd extolling his genius; maybe he simply burned out. Either way, The Birds .
