Cornithology

Rating: 5/10 (18 August 2012)

By a bizarre coincidence the plural Birds was screened on late night TV on the very day I had seen the singular - and vastly superior - The Bird (l'Oiseau) on the big screen. My opinion - to which I am entitled - that Hitchcock is vastly overrated is known to anyone who has read my review of any Hitchcock film on IMDb but in this case he had some real expertise in the shape of a screenplay by Salvatore Lombino who is perhaps better known by one of his pseudonyms Evan Hunter and Ed McBain being the two most recognizable. The fact that Jessica Tandy, the great English actress who emigrated to the US around the same time as Hitch and went on to create the iconic role of Blanche du Bois in the original 1947 production of A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, is also on hand is yet another plus factor, to say nothing of reliables like Charles McGraw and Lonny Chapman in smaller roles. I suppose what I'm really saying is, given the screenplay and the named actors you could assingn this to a journeyman like Tay Garnett and you'd still get a decent movie, so hold the genuflections to Hitch.