Memorable flight of fancy

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2012)

Sadly this was the last good film from Alfred Hitchcock, it was downhill all the way from this – sadly because I always felt the last 5 he directed were all wasted opportunities and not inherently bad films. Although Frenzy was cheap and nasty and Family Plot was dull and flat. Hitch was still at the top of his game here, completely indifferent to the content of du Maurier's short story and telling us as he done so often in the past a cinema story instead with wonderful panache.
Ice cool blonde Hedren falls for chunky lawyer Taylor, visits him at his house by the sea bringing with her 2 love birds and also apparently bringing down all the local birds united anger. The birds sporadically violently attack the humans, no one knows why or how to stop them – but how could they when they didn't even know the difference between ravens and blackbirds. Plenty of iconic old fashioned shocks: the farmer in his pyjamas lying dead; the crows silently flocking on the climbing frame behind the awkwardly smoking Hedren; the chaos when the petrol station was attacked; Hedren being stabbed in the shower, sorry, bedroom by the waiting birds; so many others. The necessary Disney cartoonery and special effects were almost immediately dated, and also much corn and clunky melodrama are displayed, all of which will always be overlooked when a story is told so masterfully as this is. Hitch always wrapped his cleverness up with a sheen of simplicity and seemingly effortlessly played with his viewers' emotions. Nearly two hours go by and then comes (the end)
Hitch would've enjoyed utilising the standard cgi cartoonery and camera technology available today (not to mention today's wonderful freedom to portray deviancy and bestiality as normal); thankfully what we have is a classic film, with faults, but watchable over and over again.