Contains brilliant set-pieces, but other important aspects seem lacking

Rating: 7/10 (9 January 2013)

"The Birds" is an unusual entry among Alfred Hitchcock's oeuvre. Although there are a few psychological dramas such as "Marnie" which do not fit this pattern, most of his suspense films feature a hero or heroine who is under threat from a human source. This threat can come from an individual criminal ("Psycho"), from a gang of criminals or terrorists ("The Man Who Knew Too Much"), from the authorities of a foreign state ("The Lady Vanishes") or, in those films which deal with a hero wrongly accused of a crime, from the authorities of his own state (The Wrong Man"). Sometimes, as in "The 39 Steps", the hero is under threat both from the police and from the real perpetrators of the crime of which he stands accused.
In "The Birds", by contrast, Hitchcock deals with a hero and heroine- indeed, with a whole community- under threat from a hostile nature. It was his third film based on a story by Daphne du Maurier, the others being "Jamaica Inn" and "Rebecca", although he transfers the action from Cornwall to Bodega Bay, California. The plot is too well-known to need setting out in any detail, but it concerns numerous unexplained violent attacks by birds on the human inhabitants of this small seaside village.
This has become one of Hitchcock's best-known films, yet seen as a piece of storytelling it is not very good. Most of the first half is taken up with the growing romance between the two main characters, Mitch Brenner and Melanie Daniels, a wealthy young socialite. The story of their romance is told in the best screwball comedy style- the scene in which they meet in a San Francisco pet shop could be a classic romantic comedy "meet-cute"- and seems out of key with the later horrific scenes. Only once, when Melanie is hit on the head by a seagull while crossing the bay in a motor-boat, do we get a foretaste of what is to come. The ending of the film is notoriously obscure and ambiguous, leaving too many issues unresolved. (When I first saw the film, having recorded it from the television, it seemed to end so abruptly that I assumed I must have set the video recorder wrongly and failed to record the ending).
What makes the film stand out is the series of increasingly violent scenes in which the birds attack, with special effects being used to produce some very scarily realistic moments. As in Du Maurier's story no explanation is given for these attacks; doubtless the director and scriptwriter felt that they would be more frightening if they were left unexplained. Some have inferred that the attacks are a form of revenge for man's exploitation of nature, but this is never stated explicitly in the film itself. There is, however, plenty of evidence for those who prefer this interpretation of the film; a pair of caged lovebirds plays an important role, we hear of chickens being kept for their eggs or eaten, and one individual volunteers the extreme opinion that all birds, of whatever species, should be exterminated.
This was the first of two movies which the lovely Tippi Hedren made with Hitchcock, the other being "Marnie" from the following year. It was, indeed, Hedren's first-ever film, apart from two uncredited minor roles in the early fifties. It is not as good a performance as she was to give in the later film, but then Marnie Edgar is a much more psychologically complex and demanding role than Melanie, who for most of the time has little to do except to scream and look frightened. (If Hedren's account of her relationship with Hitchcock, as detailed in the recent film "The Girl", is to be believed, she was quite genuinely terrified for most of the time while filming). Hedren was a model before becoming an actress, and her performance here is typified by the sort of grace, elegance and ease of movement which one might expect from a former model, but which one does not always get from today's catwalk queens when they try their hand at acting. (No names mentioned). Rod Taylor in his only film with Hitchcock makes a solid, dependable hero, and there are also good contributions from Jessica Tandy as Mitch's possessive mother, Suzanne Pleshette (as striking a beauty as Hedren) as the young schoolteacher Annie Hayworth, and Ethel Griffies in a cameo as an elderly ornithologist.
Some would claim classic status for this film, but for me it does not really represent the very best of Hitchcock. There is an instructive contrast between this film and the two which preceded it, "North by North-West" and "Psycho", both of which I would regard as among his best. Both those films contain memorable directorial set-pieces, the crop-duster and Mount Rushmore scenes in the first, the shower scene in the second, but both are also superior pieces of storytelling, combining suspense with a great plot and satisfying characterisation and, in the case of "North by North-West", humour as well. "The Birds" probably contains more set-pieces than any other Hitchcock film, but other important aspects seem lacking. At his best, there was always more to the great man than a series of brilliantly directed individual scenes. 7/10