The Birds (1963)

In one of Alfred Hitchcock's landmark horror-thriller classics - it told an apocalyptic tale about an onslaught of seemingly unexplained, arbitrary and chaotic attacks of ordinary birds. The action of the film occurred over a five-day period, from a Friday through a Tuesday morning. The film was shot on location in the port town of Bodega Bay (north of San Francisco) and in San Francisco itself.

Novelist Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain) based his screenplay upon the 1952 collection of short stories of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. The film's non-existent musical score was replaced by an electronic soundtrack (including simulated bird cries and wing-flaps), with Hitchcock's favorite composer Bernard Herrmann serving as a sound consultant. Hitchcock's film was moderately successful - with a budget of $3.3 million, it took in gross revenue of $11.4 million.

The typical Hitchcock MacGuffin was the question: Why do the strange attacks occur? In the film itself, there was no solid, rational reason why the birds were attacking. They were not seeking revenge for nature's mistreatment, or foreshadowing doomsday, and they didn't represent God's punishment for humankind's evil. The attacks were mysteriously related to the mother and son relationship in the film, when the over-controlling mother expressed anger and fears of abandonment or being left lonely if her bachelor son successfully courted an attractive young woman.

It could also be theorized that the attacking birds were evidence of the male fear of female dominance and sexuality, served up as punishment for the female's unwomanly pursuit of a male love interest (who had already been claimed by an ex-girlfriend and his own mother). [Note: The British slang word for a woman is "bird."]

On an allegorical level, the birds in the film were the physical embodiment and exteriorization of unleashed, disturbing, shattering forces that threatened all of humanity (those threatened in the film included mostly the vulnerable, including schoolchildren, a defenseless farmer, bystanders, a schoolteacher, etc.) when relationships were becoming insubstantial, unsupportive, or hurtful. However, the birds also functioned to bring together the son's family and his love interest.

• during the opening credits that appeared on white background, dark black, silhouetted bird-shapes rushed through and destroyed the robin's egg-blue credits as they appeared, accompanied by upsetting noises of screeching flapping sounds and bird cries
• the film opened in San Francisco on a Friday, as blonde, attractive, glamorous and well-dressed socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a spoiled, rich-girl heiress/heroine in the city, entered the Davidson's Pet Shop; she had just noticed swarming and menacing seagulls darkening the sky for no apparent reason; she was there to pick up a mynah bird to give to her uptight Aunt Tessa, but it hadn't arrived yet
• in the pet shop, she happened to meet handsome, virile, bachelor (criminal law) attorney Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), and pretended that she was one of the shop's employees (and failed miserably); they carried on a flirtatious conversation about his acquisition of lovebirds to be purchased for his young 11 year-old sister's birthday; when she accidentally released one of the canaries from a cage into the air, he was able to deftly return it to its cage, while remarking that she was pampered and imprisoned like the bird: "Back in your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels"; he then revealed that he had recognized her (and knew her name) from a courtroom appearance after a destructive, expensive practical joke that resulted in a broken plate-glass window; although he was denegrating and insulting to her, and was paying her back: ("...to know what it's like to be on the other end of a gag"), she was immediately smitten by him

"Back in your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels"

Melanie: "What did you say?"

• after Mitch left without buying anything, she wrote down his car license number, and through a business connection and acquaintance, she was able to obtain Mitch's city address; she ordered a pair of lovebirds that Mitch was requesting to buy - and left the store
• in the next scene the following day (Saturday), she carried a gold birdcage with two green, yellow-headed lovebirds into an apartment elevator, to leave them at Mitch's apartment door; she was informed by a neighbor (Richard Deacon) that Mitch was away for the entire weekend at his family's home in Bodega Bay, about 60 miles north of the city
• she promptly decided to visit and rapidly drove in her silver convertible sports car up the coast, with the two lovebirds in the front seat - leaning left and right as her car tooks twists and turns in the road; in town, she learned from the US postal clerk (John McGovern) that bachelor Mitch Brenner lived in a white house across the bay with his mother Lydia and his younger sister, but he couldn't remember the young girl's name (who was about to celebrate her birthday)
• in order to take a direct route to the house to surprise Mitch, Melanie decided to rent an outboard boat near the Tides Restaurant, but first, it was recommended that she visit the home of the town's schoolteacher Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette) to verify the name of Mitch's younger sister; the well-coiffed Melanie met the earthy, dark-haired Annie tending to her outdoor garden; while speaking on their front porch and at Melanie's car, she learned that Annie was Mitch's former girlfriend; she also was told that Mitch's sister was named Cathy; Melanie had a short and gingerly-treated conversation with Annie regarding their mutual interest in Mitch
• Melanie returned to the town's dock and rented a skiff with an outboard motor from a quizzical fisherman (Doodles Weaver) who noted how she was inappropriately-dressed; as Melanie came closer to the Brenner dock across the bay, she switched off the motor and paddled in, while watching Mitch enter a large red barn on his land's property; she discreetly snuck up into the house to deposit the gold birdcage of lovebirds in the living room, and decided to leave a card for Cathy specifying that the birds were a birthday gift; afterwards as the sequence reversed itself and she paddled away, she voyeuristically watched Mitch enter the house, and then run back out; he noticed her skiff, with the aid of binoculars (in a heart-shaped POV), and grinned when he saw and recognized her; he jumped into his car and raced her speeding motorboat back to Bodega Bay on the open, vulnerable water
• as Mitch stood and waited non-chalantly for her at the wharf's dock, the first bird attack in Bodega Bay occurred as Melanie's boat approached closer to Mitch; a seagull "deliberately" and abruptly swept down from the cloudy sky and viciously pecked her in the forehead, drawing blood (the first bird attack) from the gash; Mitch assisted her into the nearby Tides Restaurant to tend to her bloody head wound; as she was treated, Melanie told him a bold lie - she had come to Bodega Bay to visit and stay with her friend Annie Hayworth, from their college days; he suspected that she liked him, although she asserted: "I loathe you. You have no manners, you're arrogant, and conceited"

First Seagull Attack - on Melanie During Her Return to Bodega Bay - Drawing Blood

• in the restaurant, they were joined by Mitch's disapproving, and icy, widowed mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy), who was surprised when Mitch brashly announced to everyone that Melanie was expected for dinner; later in the day, Melanie convinced Annie to let her rent her a room for just one evening while hinting that things were developing positively with Mitch, causing some jealousy between them; as an ominous sign, birds were continuing to unexpectedly hover and gather over the town

Mitch's Widowed Mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy)	Melanie Renting a Room From Annie For the Night
Mitch's Younger 11 Year-Old Sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright)	Mitch With His Disapproving Mother Critical of Melanie

• as Melanie arrived for dinner, Mitch's little sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) thanked her for the gift of lovebirds; in the barn, Cathy explained how Lydia's chickens had lost their appetites and wouldn't eat; in the house, Lydia phoned the chicken feed salesman to complain about the poor quality of his product, and was told that the problem was widespread in town with all varieties of chicken feed; while cleaning up after dinner, Mitch revealed his loving affection for his old-fashioned, over-protective mother, even though Lydia cattily spoke about her dislike of Melanie's notorious and exaggerated reputation in the gossipy newspapers as a jet-setting, rich and wild female; an overbearing and domineering mother, Lydia had presumably poisoned Mitch's relationships with women in the past, especially after the death of his father
• after Melanie arrived at Annie's home to spend the night, Annie's reasons for her breakup with Mitch were revealed - it was due to Lydia's displeasure and interference with her son's acquaintances, and her fear as a widow "of being abandoned" by her son after her husband's death - or maybe it was due to Mitch's basic romantic unresponsiveness; however, Annie had still decided to move to Bodega Bay to be near him; a phone call from Mitch brought Melanie an invitation to remain in town for Cathy's birthday party on the following day (Sunday); as Melanie accepted his invitation, a thud was heard, and a dead gull was found on Annie's porch's threshold next to the front door (the second attack); Annie mused: "Probably lost his way in the dark"
• during the next day's outdoor birthday party for Cathy, a formally-dressed Mitch and Melanie walked together up to the top of a sand dune and nearby hillside, where they chit-chatted about Melanie's random volunteer social work, and then she described, with some upset in her voice, her estrangement from her mother; Melanie's abandoning, unloving mother had "ditched" her for another man when she was eleven - the age that Cathy was celebrating at her birthday party; Melanie said that she now had no idea of her mother's whereabouts
• back at the party, where the young guests were guided by Annie while playing a game of blind-man's bluff - a seagull pecked at the blindfolded Cathy's forehead, similar to the attack on Melanie; in the frightening sequence, other birds swooped down, causing the victimized children to scream and run for cover; colorful party balloons popped and burst as both Mitch (and then Melanie) pried pecking birds from the heads of two innocent girls, one helplessly prostrate on the ground and flailing her arms; it was the third seagull attack within 24 hours; as it turned out, the only injury was a single scratch down one girl's cheek; Mitch invited Melanie to stay through dinner at the Brenner's home before returning to SF

(Third) Seagull Attack at Cathy's Sunday Outdoor Birthday Party

• that evening in the Brenner household, in a very eerie scene (the fourth attack scene), a single, out of place sparrow appeared on the Brenner's fireplace hearth during dinner - and then a stream of hundreds of sparrows and other birds infiltrated the room from the chimney to attack the family; Mitch overturned the coffee table, blocked the fireplace entrance, and beat at the birds in flight to direct them out of an open window, to deal with the situation; Lydia was especially upset and dismayed by the destruction of symbols of tranquil domesticity (a broken tea cup and other porcelain items) that were smashed onto the floor when Mitch blocked the fireplace with the table
• the visiting Sheriff Al Malone (Malcolm Atterbury) was confused by the seemingly-random and peculiar "attacks": "Attack's a pretty strong word, don't you think? I mean, birds just don't go around attacking people without no reason, you know what I mean?"; Melanie volunteered to help and stay for the night (with Mitch's approval), although Lydia seemed irritated
• the next day (Monday morning), Lydia drove off (with Cathy to be dropped at school) in their Ford pickup truck toward neighbor Dan Fawcett's farm, to discuss their problems with chickens; after entering by herself through the unlocked kitchen door, there was no answer, and she called out: "Dan, are you home?"; a row of neatly-broken teacups dangling from hooks under the kitchen cabinet caught her shocked attention; she also found other chaotic damage - a dead seagull impaled in a broken window, an upturned, bric-a-brac plastic bird sculpture, bird feathers, two more dead birds, and a disordered bed; on the floor were two bloodied, bare feet sticking out from a pair of shredded pajama pants

Destruction in the Fawcett Farmhouse

• in three jump shots that zoomed forward to his face, Dan Fawcett's lifeless body was seen propped in the corner of the room - both of his bloody, darkened eye sockets were empty - plucked out during the bird attack (the fifth bird attack); in shock, she emitted an inaudible scream from her open, gaping mouth as she raced down the hallway with her hands in the air; her Ford truck backfired as she churned and roared back to the Brenner home; she almost directed her truck into Melanie and Mitch standing in the driveway; before Mitch reported the incident at the Fawcett farm to the Sheriff, he kissed Melanie in the kitchen - both urged each other to be careful; Melanie served tea to Lydia in her bedroom

Mitch and Melanie Kissing Each Other After Telling Each Other to be Careful

Melanie Comforting a Distressed Lydia: ("I don't want to be left alone")

• during a lengthy conversation sequence as Melanie served tea to Lydia in the ground-floor bedroom, they bonded together; Lydia opened up and sought reassurance about her losses and dependencies in life (especially the death of her husband Frank), and then sorrowfully added that she feared that she might lose Mitch to Melanie: "I don't want to be left alone. I don't think I could bear to be left alone"; Melanie suggested going to Cathy's school to check on her safety and well-being
• in one of Hitchcock's most brilliant, believably frightening, hallucinatory and memorable sequences, Melanie drove up to the Bodega Bay School, and heard children's voices singing a sing-song, repetitive nursery rhyme in the background, "Rissle-dy, Rossle-dy", derived from the Scottish folk tune "The Wee Cooper o' Fife"; Melanie signaled to Annie at the door of the classroom that she was outside, and waited on a bench in front of a white fence; a chilling wind blew, and then in a cutaway shot, a single blackbird fluttered and settled on the children's adjacent playground jungle-gym behind her; after a change of perspective as the unaware Melanie lit her cigarette, four blackbirds were ominously perched on the apparatus; a fifth bird landed, and she looked over her left shoulder - in the wrong direction, but saw nothing; afterwards, the birds seemed to steadily multiply like storm clouds, as Melanie looked twice more to her left without spotting them

Birds Silently Amassing on a Jungle-Gym Outside School Behind Melanie

• then, in the most masterful film shot of all, her eyes noticed a single bird flying across the sky - her gaze followed it toward the jungle gym, now covered by hundreds of birds, with dozens of others perched on a fence and structure behind - before she realized the threat; speechless and frantic, she warned Annie to get the children out of there, who heeded directions for an orderly fire-drill evacuation; the children quietly filed outside, where the semi-agitated birds were packed tightly together on the playground equipment
• after hearing the sounds of the children's feet frantically running and fleeing on the pavement down the hill, the flock of birds flew after them to assault them (the sixth bird attack in the film) - filling the sky by rising up behind the school; the whooshing, flapping sound of the crows intensified the awe and terror, as they descended on the screaming, fleeing children and pecked at their heads; one red-sweatered schoolgirl (Morgan Brittany) fell, shattered her eyeglasses (shown in close-up), and desperately called out for help; Melanie and Cathy helped her to seek shelter in a nearby parked car; soon after, the birds began dissipate

• Melanie phoned her father from the town's Tides Restaurant, to tell him of the bird attack at the school; beret-wearing, tweed-suited, cigarette-smoking, self-acknowledged ornithologist expert Mrs. Bundy (Ethel Griffies) overheard the conversation, and became skeptical; she defended the birds - claiming that they never would unite to mass attack because they weren't intelligent enough: ("Birds are not aggressive creatures, Miss... It is mankind, rather, who insists upon making it difficult for life to exist upon this planet"); a drunk doomsayer (Karl Swenson) at the bar exclaimed that it was the apocalyptic end of the world; boat owner Sebastian Sholes (Charles McGraw) in a corner booth rose up and claimed that gulls had attacked his fishing boats
• the elderly Mrs. Bundy continued to make pronouncements about how birds don't start wars: "Birds have been on this planet, Miss Daniels, since Archaeopteryx, a hundred and forty million years ago. Doesn't it seem odd that they'd wait all that time to start a, a war against humanity"; as he ordered a drink at the bar, an angry, business-suited traveling salesman (Joe Mantell) had a different solution: "Get yourselves guns and wipe them off the face of the earth...Kill 'em all. Get rid of them. Messy animals"
• Mrs. Bundy began to scare people when she explained that if birds really wanted to attack and all species flocked together, they could wipe out civilization: "Why, if that happened, we wouldn't have a chance! How could we possibly hope to fight them?"; a concerned and alarmed mother (Doreen Lang) with two small children in the restaurant was afraid that all the loud talk of bird attacks was upsetting her family: "Why don't you all go home? Lock your doors and windows"
• Mitch arrived at the restaurant with the Sheriff and described the lethal attack on Dan Fawcett, although the Sheriff (and Santa Rosa police) remained skeptical, and believed it might have been a felony robbery-murder, after which the birds entered to cause havoc; however, they seemed to be proven wrong when the group of patrons-spectators watched helplessly and passively from the window of the restaurant as seagulls swooped down on a gas station attendant at the nearby Capitol Oil Co (the seventh bird attack); after one pass, they struck him and knocked him to the ground, along with the gasoline hose/nozzle with flowing gasoline; some of the witnesses (including Mitch and the Sheriff) assisted the fallen individual, but ignored a stream of gasoline running downhill on the pavement

(Seventh Attack) - Gas Station Attendant Knocked to Ground by Bird	Gasoline Flowing Downhill From Downed Gas Nozzle	Salesman Lighting Cigar
Explosion at the Car	The Fire Streaking Back to the Gas Station	Another Massive Explosion

• they also watched in horror as the angry, business-suited traveling salesman lit his cigar; Melanie suspensefully anticipated his horrible fate: "Look at the gas. That man's lighting a cigar"; when they slid open the window, their symphony of warning screams were misunderstood; he burned his fingers with the lighted match, dropped it in the path of flammable liquid, set off an explosion at his car, and was suddenly engulfed by flames; as everyone watched with fearful paralysis, the fire streaked back toward the service station and resulted in an exploding inferno
• the most impressive single point-of-view shot in the film was an overhead aerial view of the town with gulls swarming and looking down on the fiery disaster below; the birds noisily screeched in triumph and gathered together for a major attack
• as the fire spread, everyone evacuated from the restaurant; Melanie frantically sought shelter in a glass telephone booth, entrapping her inside while there was major and utter chaos outside; a brilliant overhead shot captured her terror-stricken position as she beat her arms around (bird-like) in the enclosure, with birds assaulting her from every direction; a man blinded by the birds (that attacked him as he drove his car) plowed into parked cars and it burst into flames; firefighters arrived bringing firehoses - one out-of-control hose spewed water toward the booth enclosing Melanie and obscured her vision; two horses pulling a wagon without a driver galloped and careened through the street; one individual with a bloodied face and birds attacking his face leaned against the outside of the booth where Melanie was entrapped; two seagulls aimed for her - they smashed into and broke the glass on two sides of the booth; the scene ended when Mitch saved her and protectively led her into the now-empty restaurant

After the Seventh Attack, Melanie Was Trapped in a Telephone Booth in the Midst of the Burning City

• back inside the restaurant, an hysterical and distraught mother with two small children rose up and spoke directly into the camera (implicating the audience), blaming an "evil" Melanie for causing the bird attacks and bringing punishment into their midst: "They said when you got here, the whole thing started. Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? I think you're the cause of all this. I think you're evil. EVIL!"; Melanie slapped the woman to silence her, as news came that the birds were retreating - for the time being; Mrs. Bundy had also been stunned into silence by all that she had witnessed
• Mitch and Melanie ran on foot up the hill to Annie's house to get Cathy, and quietly walked around the jungle-jim that was still crowded with birds; they saw Annie's deceased body sprawled outside on her front steps, with her legs slightly splayed apart and elevated as if she had been raped; it was evidence of the eighth bird attack in the film; Mitch shielded Annie's bloodied face from Melanie's view; Cathy was inside behind a window in the house - safe but crying and deathly frightened and traumatized, due to the fact that Annie had sacrificed herself to save her life; before leaving, Annie's body was carried inside the house

Eighth Bird Attack - Killing Annie

• back in the Brenner house, with increased worry about an impending bird attack, Mitch nailed boards in the upper floor (attic) of the home; in the nearby distance over the last 15 minutes, the birds had been gathering again and darkening the sky, repeating a pattern; Mitch built a fire to keep the birds from entering through the living room chimney; after being barricaded inside for awhile, there were increasingly-louder sounds of birds chirping and other rustling sounds outside - a massive assault (the ninth bird attack); birds began to smash through the windows and peck at the wooden doors; as Mitch closed some opened shutters, birds pecked at his left hand and drew blood; he was forced to move a heavy piece of furniture up against the front door to block the birds' entry, and nailed it in place; but then, the power went out and things strangely subsided - there would be quiet until early Tuesday morning
• while the others found time to get a bit of sleep in the living room, Melanie went to investigate the sounds of the fluttering of a few bird's wings; she grabbed a flashlight and ascended the stairs to the attic bedroom; when she looked up, she saw a gaping hole in the roof - her own mouth widened and she gasped; she raised her flashlight and its wide beam illuminated hundreds of birds - almost blinding her and paralyzing her with fear; as she defensively shielded her eyes and face with upraised arms and hands, the birds swooped down on her and began cutting into her flesh; ineffectually, she reached for the doorknob to escape; the flashlight waved uselessly as a weapon against them

Tenth Bird Attack in the Brenner 2nd Floor (Attic) Bedroom Upon Melanie

• the overpowering, brutal attack (the film's tenth and final bird attack), similar to the one in Hitchcock's infamous shower sequence in Psycho (1960), intensified as, in anguish and pain, she breathed heavily and surrendered to their tearing and pecking (there was no music in the scene, only flapping bird sounds); her cool-green outfit was torn apart as she collapsed unconscious next to the door, exclaiming: "Is Cathy in the...?"; Mitch called out for her at the top of the stairs, and struggled to open the door, now blockaded by her body; both Mitch and his mother fought off the birds as Mitch clawed for Melanie's arm and pulled her to safety; Melanie was left traumatized, catatonic and bloody; cotton soaked in antiseptics and bandages were applied to her face, forehead, and head; Mitch insisted that they take Melanie to a hospital for medical attention
• in the final haunting and ominous ending scene set at dawn on Tuesday morning, hundreds of tyrannical birds sat everywhere surrounding the house; as Mitch retrieved Melanie's vehicle in the garage, the car's radio reported that bird attacks had been centered on Bodega Bay, but also in other places (Sebastopol and Santa Rosa), and there was discussion about the military's intervention; the film's last spoken dialogue was from Cathy asking: "Can I bring the lovebirds, Mitch? They haven't harmed anyone," with Mitch's reply: "All right, bring them"; Lydia helped to support Melanie as she was guided outside, somehow bonded together by the mutual trauma

The Struggle to Get Melanie Into the Vehicle - Lydia's "Maternal" Care

• the main characters eased out of the house and carefully drove away in Melanie's vehicle - without Hitchcock's typical "THE END"; the Brenner home was infested with observant birds tyrannically claiming it, and implying an unending threat; the triumphant birds appeared to chatter and applaud their conquest