A victory lap for Hitch

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2003)

Alfred Hitchcock was on the run of his life by the early 1960s. His last three films, `Vertigo,' `North By Northwest,' and `Psycho,' were not uniformly successful in their day, but all would eventually become recognized as among an elite grouping of truly great films. In December, 2003, IMDB's own ranking system has all three in its Top 30, pretty incredible anyway you slice it. But what was really incredible was how Hitchcock came off that creative peak. Other directors might have made a vanity picture, or an overblown epic of some kind. Hitchcock made `The Birds,' an entirely different kind of film from anything he or anyone else had made before, one that would carve out its own genre for decades to come. And a pretty fine movie to boot.
There was never a movie as utterly out-of-the-blue as `The Birds.' Even `Psycho' had some precedent going for it. Before `Psycho,' people had killed other people for no better reason than it seemed like something worth doing at the time. But concerted offensives directed from the animal kingdom? A film that starts off as a romantic comedy i.e. `When Harry Met Sally' and ends up like `Jurassic Park' with feathers in place of scales? What people must have thought in 1963!
Tippi Hendren stars as Melanie Daniels, a sort of Paris Hilton character who lives the life of a carefree trust-fund princess until a chance encounter with disapproving lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) sends her on a whimsical trip to his family home in Bodega Bay, and into the hands, or claws, of destiny. Hendren plays her very well, charming and a trifle too easygoing. Taylor offers an interesting parallel, as a smug, scarf-wearing playboy you somehow find yourself liking for (or despite) his assured charm. Whether the two will find each other or not is the principal source of interest through the first half of the film. After, of course, it's whether they get turned into bird chow.
Whatever sets the birds of Bodega Bay off is a mystery. Maybe it is the presence of Melanie Daniels, as one resident blurts out, though there is evidence the attack is much wider-spread. Maybe it is the environmental damage being done to the planet by humankind, just gaining expression during this period in works like `Silent Spring.' Maybe it's one too many Thanksgivings. The wherefores aren't as important as the hows, how the birds start their attacks, with slow-gathering momentum that gains in ferocity until the town of Bodega Bay is literally aflame.
`The Birds' doesn't get the same kind of respect as does so-called classic Hitchcock of previous decades, which is just stupid snobbery. His powers as the proclaimed `Master of Suspense' were never as much on view; not since his British period before World War II, anyway. `Vertigo' and `Suspicion' and others are good in their way, but they don't reward repeat viewings the same way `The Birds' does. Every person Melanie meets in Bodega Bay has his or her own involving personality that welcomes interest at the same time she or her serves to speed the plot along. The lunch crowd at the Tides Restaurant alone would be worth an hour of anyone else's movie. And then there's Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette, as two characters who make quite a tandem as they seem to resent Melanie's attentions on Mitch. Is their jealousy somehow at the cause of all this?
Editing is a chief virtue of `The Birds.' It papers over the defects in the special effects exposed by advancing technology and galvanizes attention to where Hitchcock wants it. Watch the scene where Jessica Tandy checks on the farmer with the grain problem. The three successive close-up shots of the farmer crumpled on the floor get deserved attention, but what about the way Hitchcock lets Tandy's Mrs. Brenner out of the house, with a series of basic shots, all filmed at angles to suggest how tilted her world has become, with no words or music to accompany her?
There's much psychology and characterization driving `The Birds,' but ultimately what makes the film worth watching are the bird attacks. Hitchcock makes you wait, but when they come, they come fast and hard, without warning or expected respite. You really gotta love the chimney scene, and the way a children's song heightens the suspense during the famous schoolyard sequence.
Just wish they had let the film go on an hour longer. So many more species still to hear from! How about a nice penguin assault, or an ostrich attack? Hitchcock could have put an entirely new construction to the term `duck hunt!'