Hitchcock's last true classic

Rating: 10/10 (9 April 2004)

Tippi Hedren plays a blond with an unhappy past and Rod Taylor plays a small town lawyer who has thing for her. After he plays a small prank on her as retribution for a prank she pulled a few months earlier, she shows up in his town looking for him to return the favor. They begin a mild courtship after a bird attacks her and she gets to know his mother and sister (though Rod looks old enough to be her father). As time unfolds, the birds attack again and again, no rhyme or reason other than Miss Hedren is in town.
Features the usual Hitchcock doses of suspense, dysfunctional relationships between a man and his mother, and a beautiful blond. Though Miss Hedren isn't quite as engaging as Eva Marie Saint or Grace Kelly, she's does alright (it was her first film after all). The mother is strangely sympathetic when compared to a few other Hitchcockian mothers.
The little sister later appeared as Lambert in "Alien".
This would be Hitchcock's last true classic, and last hit from a box office standpoint. While his subsequent films certainly had their interesting points (though TOPAZ was something of a low point for him), Hitch's craftsmanship would slowly begin to deteriorate and he never again quite achieved what he achieved here and/or what he achieved in his other earlier films. Essential viewing.