AWARDS:
WINNER: 1964 Golden Globes USA: Most promising newcomer: Tippi Hedren
NOMINATION: 1964 Academy Awards USA: Oscar for Best Special Visual Effects
SYNOPSIS:
A wealthy reformed party girl (Tippi Hedren) enjoys a brief flirtation with a lawyer (Rod Taylor) in a San Francisco pet shop and decides to follow him to his Bodega Bay home. Bearing a gift of two lovebirds, she quickly strikes up a romance while contending with his possessive mother and boarding at his ex-girlfriend's house. One day, during a child's birthday party a flock of birds attacks the children in what seems to be a random incident. In fact, it signals the beginning of a massive avian assault on the residents of the town--a mysterious assault that no one can explain...and from which no one may come out alive.
Loosely based on a Daphne du Maurier story and a California newspaper account, "Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes," THE BIRDS features groundbreaking special effects that, in 1963, surprised and delighted audiences. Beyond the superb effects, however, the film is also one of Hitchcock's most psychologically complicated scenarios, a tense study of the violence of nature, and of sexual power, loneliness, and complacency. The master of suspense couples a tone of rigorous morality with dark humor to create a thriller that begins as a light comedy and ends as an apocalyptic allegory. It is quintessential Hitchcock, and although it was treated with scant attention by serious critics in 1963, THE BIRDS has grown into a classic and regarded as one of his strangest and most terrifying films.
REVIEW:
On an impulse, a wealthy socialite drives to a remote lakeside village in pursuit of a man who has insulted her, taking with her a pair of lovebirds for his little sister's birthday. As she crosses the lake, she is inexplicably attacked by a seagull. It is the first of an escalating series of incidents, never fully explained, which place the inhabitants of the village in a state of siege. When the birds can force their way through almost any opening, how can they keep themselves safe? And with the phone lines down and no rescue on the way, how can they ever hope to escape?
All of this sounds like the premise of an excruciatingly twee horror movie, but in the hands of Alfred Hitchcock it's something else. He starts by providing us with real, complex characters. Watching Tippi Hedren play the heroine with such confidence and flair, it's hard to believe that this was her first starring role. Opposite her, Rod Taylor is suave and caddish and yet undeniable likeable. Jessica Tandy makes up the odd threesome as his possessive widowed mother, desperately dependent yet perhaps, all along, only really needing the reassurance of having somebody depend on her.
The way THE BIRDS is shot is the stuff of legend, and its stunning photography is essential viewing for anyone interested in directing a film themselves (or even taking a good snapshot). Throughout the easy going early scenes, the big sky looms over everything, bleak and empty, setting the stage for attacks that seem to come from everywhere. Later, in one classic scene, Hedren sits down to wait on a bench outside the schoolhouse. A single crow sits on the climbing frame behind her. When the camera turns that way again, there are four more. Then ten. Then Hedren turns round to see the whole structure covered in birds, all looking at her in that sidelong way, waiting for their moment. As she backs silently away, her terror is palpable. eyeforfilm.uk
