"It's the end of the world !!" - yelled the drunken Doomsayer at the diner. An interspecies birds launch an attack on humans in the small coastal town of Bodega Bay.

Rating: 10/10 (27 August 2018)

Coming from a last night screening of "The Birds" in a drive-in theater, i decided to write the review here of one of Hitchcock's most critically misunderstood films, even if it's one of his most cherished & well known towards the general public.
Firstly, it's undeniable how much "The Birds" influenced the postmodernist horror & suspense cinema, from George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" to Steven Spielberg's "Jaws"; John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13", "Halloween" and particularly, "The Fog" or more recently Frank Darabont's "The Mist", the sense of dread provided by a menace surrounding a group of individuals in a small coastal town became the pinnacle of a genre that still attracts millions of viewers.
Secondly, Hitchcock's use of silence (no orchestration was used), except for the sound effects to create the birdcalls and noises, was a genious and inovative decision from the Master (Hitchcock had already used this gimmick in "Lifeboat"), it created the perfect eerie tone for the film.
Thirdly, the special effects and animatronics were outstanding for the early 60's standards, and it still holds well and way more realistic (the attacking birds and their interaction with the actors) than the nowadays' use of the overexposed C.G.I.
The way that scenes were staged and photographed by Hitchcock's usual cinematographer, Robert Burks (the visual craftsman behind Hitch's most celebrated films such as "Dial M For Murder", "Rear Window", "Vertigo" or "North by Northwest") were unique and inovative (it even amazed the legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa who included "The Birds" in his top 100 films ever made, using a technical and artistic criteria).
Fourthly, the plot was loosely based on the 1952 short-story of the same name by the British Novelist, Dame Daphne du Maurier (who also penned "Rebecca" & "Jamaica Inn", two previous Hitchcock's film adaptations), but the screenplay by Evan Hunter was expanded to include new characters and sub-plots for the full length movie to work, hence the entire first act developing the relationship between the two main characters and "the third wheel" who lives in the coastal town of Bodega Bay, where the main action takes place.
The reason why the interspecies of birds attacked people during that fateful weekend was indeed left unexplained, maybe due to the imperfections of the human race (every character in the movie was written as having major flaws) and we're a condemned species after all and nature and the animals, the worthy and the pure ones who will inherit Earth, will come and take their toll.
Last, but not the least, the cast. Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (which is, with Peter Griffith, the parents of the Academy Award Nominee, Melanie Griffith), a former fashion model who was discovered by the Master when he saw her in a TV commercial, he put her under his wing and gave her an education in filmmaking, which is way evident in her screen debut in "The Birds". She's total confident in the role of Melanie Daniels and made the camera her own, following the footsteps of Hitch's other famous blondes such as Grace Kelly or Kim Novak.
'Tippi', and now the tastes may differ, is probably the most beautiful of all the Hitchcock's leading actresses, she had a some kind of innocence, but at the same time a mysterious nuance throughout her on-screen personna and debuting at 32 years old on cinema she had much more class and self-confidence as a woman than Grace Kelly in her 20's trying to stole the focus in "Rear Window" or "Dial M for Murder".
Her performance here as Melanie Daniels and as the title character in the Hitch's follow-up work, "Marnie", where she delivered even a greater performance, are absolutely fascinating.
Rod Taylor was cast as the male lead when Hitch opted for a cheaper actor (Connery wasn't avaiable because he was shooting his second entry in the Bond universe: "From Russia with Love", but he was later used as 'Tippi' Hedren's charming co-lead in "Marnie") than his usual lead stars of Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant. He wanted to make a film about the unexplained bird attacks, not about Hollywood's established hearthtrobs and stardom, so he keeped it low profile.
The surly rugged, but wooden actor, who looked at least 10 years older than his actual age and could have matched better with his on-screen mother (played here by an over-the-top, but future Oscar winner Jessica Tandy) than 'Tippi', was not the perfect choice for the "Mitch" Brenner character, but in his defense he didn't ruined it and, in a matter of fact, he fared better doing his beefcake action routine during the birds attacks scenes, than in the more intimate and sensitive moments with Hedren.
To contrast his ladies, brunette Suzanne Pleshette was specifically hired by Hitch to play Rod Taylor's former fiancee, the school teacher Annie Hayworth, and she was jealous throughout principal photography of 'Tippi' having all the director's attention and being the lead star in the film, and maybe that bitterness enhanced her supporting performance.
She's very good, especially during the initial confrontation with 'Tippi'.
Former child star and future adult actress, Veronica Cartwright, better known as Lambert in Ridley Scott's sci-fi / horror classic "Alien", is appropriate as Rod Taylor's much younger sister. Again he looked more his father than his older brother.
To summarize, "The Birds" isn't Hitchcock's american masterpiece film, that honor belongs undoubtedly to "Vertigo", but it's one of his most daring and technically accomplished works. The birds as characters may not be as memorable as Anthony Perkins' rendition of Norman Bates in "Psycho", but they're still quite effective and the movie deserves to be re-praised as one of the greatest entries in the filmography of 'The Master of Suspense'.