I can't believe these nasty birds have bitten holes in my Edith Head suit!

Rating: Null/10 (29 January 2003)

I love this movie and I watch it about once every couple of months. The genius of Alfred Hitchcock is undisputed and has been well-documented so I'm not going discuss that. If a viewer doesn't understand the subtleties and layers of meaning in this film, then it really wasn't for them. These are the same people who like in-your-face scares, and can't understand a movie that doesn't beat you over the head with violence and bloodshed.
There are enough things to be read into the characters and scenes in this movie, that it would take endless reviews to cover them. Many of them have been touched upon in the reviews here, but I would like to add a few more comments about Melanie Daniel's character:
Did you notice the coy simper on her face just before the seagull attacked her in the boat? She's posing for Mitch, her head is cocked to one side and she has this annoying, fake look on her face and the bird swoops down and ruins it. I wonder what her first words to Mitch would have been if the bird had not attacked her?
I didn't feel sympathy for her when she was at Cathy's birthday party talking to Mitch about her mother and how she had abandoned her when she was a child. Her voice gets this phony catch when she says, `I don't know where she is.' She is so obviously trying to be the poor little rich girl and elicit Mitch's sympathy. Why would she sound near tears talking about a mother who had to have been out of her life for at least the last 15 years? [Tippi Hedren's voice really got on my nerves too.]
Melanie seems a little too smug and self assured in her attractiveness and she expects all men to find her enchanting. The only reason she goes after Mitch is because he didn't seem to be impressed with her. She is like a child who sees something she can't have and immediately sets out to try and get it any way she can. She seemed like a selfish, relentless sort; buying the love birds, driving 60 miles to Mitch's home town to find him ostensibly to deliver the birds to Cathy in time for her birthday.

And then, we have the famous scene where she goes upstairs by herself. Who in their right mind would decide that `Gee, everybody is asleep and even though this isn't my house, I think I'll just nip upstairs with this flashlight and see if the birds are gone.' Wouldn't it have made more sense to wake up Mitch and ask him to go with her? Why did she even care? I think she got exactly what was coming to her. No more did bad things happen to other people, here was the golden girl herself being assaulted like any other fool who blundered into a nasty situation that they couldn't control. I think the shock of the birds actually daring to attack her, shocked her so much that she couldn't move. She couldn't believe it was really happening. Otherwise, why not swat a few of them off with that big flashlight and open the door and get the hell out of there?
I think the ending was inevitable. Melanie Daniels thought that she could do whatever she wanted in life because she was rich and attractive and felt that she didn't have to suffer the consequences of her actions. She thought life would always be like this but her experience in Bodega Bay proved her wrong.
I'd like to discuss Annie Heyworth too, but I'll leave it for another time.