The Birds Movie
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Storyline
TAGLINES
Suspense and shock beyond anything you have seen or imagined!
It could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made!
Nothing You Have Ever Witnessed Before Has Prepared You for Such Sheer Stabbing Shock!
The Birds is coming!
...And remember, the next scream you hear could be your own!
Guaranteed to make you want to stop bird-watching and put the old bird feeder to the ax—at least for a while. The whole thing starts when Melanie Daniels is crossing a lake and is nipped by a gull. Gradually, incidence of bird damage to humans by pecking increases. Glass windows splinter before diving birds, children are sent home from school to safety, townspeople take refuge in a lunchroom, Miss Daniels in a phone booth, and finally everyone hides in homes tightly boarded up against repeated attacks by the birds. It's enough to make you kick the next pigeon you come across.
| Rod Taylor | Mitch Brenner |
| Jessica Tandy | Lydia Brenner |
| Suzanne Pleshette | Annie Hayworth |
| Tippi Hedren | Melanie Daniels |
| Veronica Cartwright | Cathy Brenner |
| Ethel Griffies | Mrs. Bundy, elderly ornithologist |
| Charles McGraw | Sebastian Sholes, fisherman in diner |
| Ruth McDevitt | Mrs. MacGruder, pet store clerk |
| Lonny Chapman | Deke Carter, cook in diner |
| Joe Mantell | Traveling salesman at diner's bar |
| Doodles Weaver | Fisherman helping with rental boat |
| Malcolm Atterbury | Deputy Al Malone |
| John McGovern | Postal clerk |
| Karl Swenson | Doomsayer in diner |
| Richard Deacon | Mitch's city neighbor |
| Alfred Hitchcock |
7.80 out of 10 (29918 votes)
Visitor Reviews
mildly outdated, yet still has suspense.....
posted on 03 Aug 2009I am a fan of most of Hitchcock. I was pleased when I watched 'The Birds'. There are many things in this movie that are quite outdated, such as some acting techniques, as well as special effect techniques. Even with such faults, minor ones if you ask me, Hitchcock manages to create some real suspense that is still effective today. Specifically in the last half hour of the film. He creates great suspense with his incredible use of sound effects creating the deafening noises of the birds attacking a house. What we get to see is the terror the people inside the house feel. In this whole sequence of events we get an excellent climax. Plus he gets us very well, not by making things happen, but by putting the thought into our heads that something could happen. The most ominous parts in this movie are not when the birds attacking, but when Hitchcock frames them gathering. The attacks are excellent in and of themselves, but its the waiting that creates the suspense. Its our knowing something that the characters don't that make it exciting, and Hitchcock does a great job of utilizing that here. Its not the greatest movie I have ever seen, but it was very good, and even with some things being outdated, it was still an innovative idea and you should check it out at least once, just to see for yourself. 8 out of 10.
Hugely over-rated
posted on 13 Jul 2009When I first watched "The Birds" on television years ago, I was left quite cold by the whole experience. Far be it from me to knock Alfred Hitchcock as a serious film-maker, but I wasn't exactly impressed by this effort from 1963. Although there were some genuinely horrific scenes and iconic scenes (such as the famous scene showing a flock of Blackbirds sitting on the climbing frame) on offer, the ending seemed rather unresolved to me. On top of that, some of the photography effects looked extremely dated.There is a distinct sense of coldness and isolation in the small-town setting of "The Birds" Definitely not the scariest horror film I've ever seen by a long shot, but I suppose I could do a lot worse.
no explanations
posted on 10 Jul 2009'The Birds' finds Alfred Hitchcock at the end, and at a peak, of a most productive and impressive run of films, which for most people began with 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' in 1934 and continued through to 'The Birds' in 1963. There were Hitchcock films before and after, of course, but for this thirty-year period, he averaged a film a year with very few duds. 'The Birds' is full of Hitchcockian touches and is a genuinely disturbing film. Not for the first time, the director lulls us into thinking we are watching a perfectly ordinary, one might even say pedestrian, comedy/drama; this time about a lawyer/playboy (Rod Taylor) and a rich society playgirl (Tippi Hedren) and the flirtatious back-and-forths of their budding relationship. You know, she can't stand him so she finds any excuse to see him, etc. The other main characters are the lawyer's possessive mother (Hitchcock did have a thing for possessive mothers), his annoying little sister, and an old flame (played by a young Suzanne Pleshette). Early on in the film, the birds themselves only intrude on this little soap opera at odd moments, just enough to make the audience go 'hmm.' But soon they are the focal point after a series of attacks in the California coastal community of Bodega Bay cannot be explained. And this is precisely where Hitchcock plays 'gotcha' with the audience. At no point in the movie is there even a hint of a logical reason for the bird attacks... the 'why' that people so desperately want and need to know when faced with a crisis beyond comprehension. The characters in the film become pawns of sorts to the madness, as incapable as the audience of understanding what's happening. They are also incapable of defending themselves. (It never occurs to anyone, even at the end, to get some shotguns and shoot the little bastards.) The juxtaposition of the humdrum with the carnage of the bird attacks is jolting at times. In perhaps the most sadistically brilliant scene, the domineering mother drives alone to a neighbor's farm to find it deserted. As she walks through the farmhouse, it appears largely undisturbed at first, only small tell-tale signs present themselves... a cracked wall hanging here, a feather there. Then she comes across the farmer, slumped to the floor in pajamas, and in a series of quick-cut close-ups, we see his bloody eye sockets where his eyes have been pecked out. The special effects themselves are variable, from quite believable (the above-mentioned scene) to almost laughably phony. Hitchcock films are notorious in this regard (see his next film, 'Marnie,' with the painted backdrop of a battleship in the final scene) and it's hard to know if this is intentional or not. The famous director did have a wicked sense of humor. Most horror films concern characters who are unalterably caught up with the terrifying forces that menace them. In 'The Birds,' the characters try their best to ignore them, to no avail.
Don't watch this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted on 25 Jun 2009This a not very scary film. For a start birds would not be so aggressive if unprovocked and it did not explain why the birds were so aggressive! I waited until the end to see what the ending was like. What ending? This is a film with no ending and if you have seen the Italian job you know what I'm talking about. If you want to see a good thriller/ horror see Children of the corn (1984) or one like this only better see Arachnophobia (1990). I'll be kind with marking 3 out of 10.
I can't believe these nasty birds have bitten holes in my Edith Head suit!
posted on 22 Jun 2009I 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.
classic
posted on 13 Jun 2009classic horror film thats suspenseful very well made stylishly directed by hitchcock this is one of his best with some nasty bird attacks and bloody as well great acting by all veronica cartwright has a small role in this too an absolute must see for all horror fans **** out of 5
Obsessions Under the Strobelight.
posted on 10 Jun 2009Some films are so well made that watching them unfold sequence by sequence creates the feeling of surrender to a higher force. Hitchcock, no stranger to spellbinding his audience, was known for bringing a sense of intense masochism into the viewer's eyes. In THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH the Albert Hall sequence is a perfect crescendo of images and music in which Jo McKenna sees a man who is the key to her son's safety prepare to commit a crime with deadly slowness. In PSYCHO, Marion Crane takes a fatal shower and gets a vicious visitor. In VERTIGO, Scotty and Judy begin a dizzying affair which itself is as obsessive as narcotic and culminates high above the bell tower, filled with revelations upon revelations.THE BIRDS is by far one of Hitchcock's most deadly incursions into cinematic masochism. In itself, it's a masterpiece of misdirection. Hitchcock has no wrong man in his story, no chase sequences (or at least, none that involve Cary Grant and some Bad Guys), and no double-crosses. All he presents here is Tippi Hedren's arrival to the small town of Bodega Bay, a series of Meet Cutes between her and Rod Taylor, what could pass as romantic suspense, and the most impressive sweeping of the rug right out from under the audience's feet at precisely halfway through the movie when the plot makes a left turn into uncharted territory. Who else can lay claim to that feat? Hitchcock, in revealing the black petals of his deadly flower revealing themselves, opening up, and swallowing the viewer whole at this precise mark is one of the un-topped achievements in cinema history.And so begins a sequence of events that proceed at the vertiginous crescendo of domino's falling. We've seen the birds amass and attack in increasing ferocity. We've seen the damage they've done to the little city. Hitchcock, of course, has one better on the viewers during the film's overpowering climax: making their presence oppressive and omniscient through the use of sound imitating their shrieks until it becomes deafening and everyone is twisting and turning in revulsion among the corners of the house in reaction not only to their fury but to what they might imagine as their horrible deaths. Hitchcock never once gives an emotional release, and then he outdoes himself in using the most hackneyed excuse for a plot device: Melanie ascending the stairs because she heard a rustling noise, the quintessential "Don't go there," which is the oldest trick in the book. Because we know what lies on the other side of the door....The stroboscopic effect of the last attack is petrifying as it is unflinching. Melanie, waving the flashlight in a weak signal for help, being slammed against the door, as Mitch tries to get inside but finds he cannot. As Melanie begins slumping and surrenders to the birds' attack, she has an odd mixture of horror and pleasure. We, of course, can't do anything but watch and watch and watch.Hitchcock had always been attracted to the theme of rape. Because his (professional) relationship with Tippi Hedren was brittle at best, this sequence, somehow out of place and character, seems more in tune with his love-hate attitude towards blonde women and his need for their total submission. Beginning with the emotional rape Jo McKenna suffers with the disappearance of her son, the psychological stripping of Madeleine's identity in VERTIGO, Marion's violent death at the Bates Motel in PSYCHO in and culminating in the barbaric rape sequence of FRENZY, he possessed a desire to destroy that which he loved or desired the most. I notice how he makes Rod Taylor's character suddenly incapable of saving Melanie right at the end (which heightens the viewers agony -- they want, they need her to survive the birds' attack). It's almost as if he, the Director as Ringmaster, were pushing the Heroine right to the edge of the abyss for one last moment before bringing her back to the (relative) safety of family. Even then, with the vague ending, Hitchcock seems to sort of wink at the audience and tell them that it's still not over -- and this is the sort of thing only a sadistic imp of a personality would do. THE BIRDS is his obsessions at its most explicit (as they were implicit in VERTIGO) and is the kind of cinematic experience that can always be rediscovered even when its tricks become evident. It's been considered Hitchcock's last masterpiece before returning to almost full form for FRENZY, and in many ways, it is the setup for the more graphic, cruel violence of the latter film.
Classic Hitchcock from du Maurier short story
posted on 20 May 2009The short story by Daphne du Maurier is transposed from South West England to America for this Hitchcock outing. It contains some really effective and scary moments and is beautifully photographed. It also has some typical Hitchcock humour. Without giving the game away for those yet to view this film, it concerns a strange phenomenon - all the birds start to gather together for a concerted attack on mankind. This attack is viewed from the perspective of the inhabitants of a small seaside community and an outsider - played by Tippi Hedren. The very ambiguous ending is as per the original tale, and all the more chilling for it. When short stories are expanded to full length films the original's impact is frequently lost. Not so here, I think. One does not look at gulls and starlings in quite the same way, having seen this film!
Why is this movie a classic!
posted on 05 May 2009I saw this movie a while back on cable and sat down to watch it mainly because I had always heard what a great movie it was. YEAH RIGHT. It was boring, it made no sense, and was their really a character that was really likeable, no. Unless your a total hitchcock fan avoid this boring flick.
Is it really that scary ?
posted on 29 Apr 2009I have watched Psycho and The Birds, both Hitchcock films, the only two of his I have seen. Comparing this to Psycho, I didn't think "The Birds" was that frightening. The only part of the film which had an effect on me was at the end when Melanie is attacked in the room by lots of birds. I'm not saying "The Birds" is a poor film, it obviously isn't but it didn't have the moving impact which I expected from a Hitchcock film, especially after viewing Psycho.
Not as suspenseful as I imagined
posted on 23 Apr 2009This film is okay. Not very special like Hitchcock's "Psycho" but not as bad as many other modern horror-films. The effects with the birds are pretty good but I don't really think that birds can scare you as much as a shark can do, like in Spielberg's "Jaws" for example, which was much better I think. If Hitchcock would have done a movie like this with other animals it would have been better! I rate it 6 out to 10.
Unsettling Apocalyptic Hitchcock - Totally Memorable
posted on 23 Apr 2009The Birds - one of my favourite Hitchcock films - is based around a young socialite/prankster (Tippi Hedren) who sets her eyes on a sexy lawyer (Rod Taylor). She follows him to Bodega Bay with a couple of caged "Love-Birds" and is herself, followed by flocks of Birds. When I was young and watched this - I thought it was fairly cheesy - with non-convincing special effects - but good for a bit of a squeal. But recently watching it again, from an adult perspective - I found it quite apocalyptic and unsettling in the way it brings up ideas of environmental damage and man against beast. The way Hitchcock devises tension in this film is quite memorable and fantastic. I love the warped "Bird" soundtrack - which just adds to the surrealness of it all. Unforgettable - and also - watch out for a Hitchcock cameo at the start of the movie!
Quite slow but still enjoyable horror drama
posted on 20 Apr 2009If you watch this on DVD or from digital television it doesn't look like as if it has aged at all. It's really an achievement in the 60's to make such a good looking movie with brilliant special effects.This movie is more of a drama than a horror movie, but still it's pretty enjoyable even today. Hitchcock puts deepness into characters and it makes them believable but it also makes this movie pretty slow because of the long lasting dialogues. Another thing to notice is that there's no soundtrack, just the ambient sounds. It's good in a way and it actually suits the film really well.If they remaked this movie they could not use birds in that way because there's a law to prohibit cruelty to animals. They got the birds to act that way because they added alcohol to the wheat which the birds ate.
Great thrill ride
posted on 14 Apr 2009I'm going to rate it in a way I saw by some other reviewer:PLOT: 7
The Birds' plot sounds campy, but it is actually highlighted by twists and a clever 'when animals attack' plot. DIRECTION: 9 Hitchcock played with a fear and made a movie out of it that was so effective, I felt like taking a shotgun to the beach and shoot some seagulls. They don't call his the master of suspense for nothing!ACTING: 6 The acting is decent, but the characters are relatively boring, you have to put up with a half an hour of bore until the master kicks off the suspense, and then the characters become quite interesting. The Birds are the real stars.SPECIAL EFFECTS/SOUND: 9 Effects were outstanding for those days, and still are pretty good today.OVERALL: 8 Great entertainment. The setting was perfect, the birds were geniuses, and everything else was great. Just don't see the sequel.
Really disappointing stuff for a really disappointing movie
posted on 11 Apr 2009I must confess I always wanted to watch this movie because I saw other classics of Sir Alfred Hitchcock, until I actually saw it. Really, the movie shows what a movie shouldn't ever have: extremely poor special effects and VERY sappy dialogs and situations. The plot seems to make ABSOLUTELY no sense at all: no-one knows why birds attack, if they finish attacking somehow (even at least because they're bored and/or tired). They join, they attack and they just go away no-one knowing REALLY why. Some things are good, however: the camera is quite well used in almost all scenes, and the soundtrack is really good sometimes, but both the script and the production have got a lot of flaws and lacks, something that Sir Alfred Hitchcock should not allow.
A great horror flick but a disappointing Hitchcock film
posted on 08 Apr 2009This is a great horror film but a mediocre Hitchcock film. It's worth seeing for all the great shots, such as the two love birds swaying back and forth as the car turns and the scene at the end of the film when Mitch opens the door and sees ALL the BIRDS, but all in all, I was disappointed in the film. The ending was abrupt and left me feeling very unfulfilled. However, don't let me discourage you from watching it... If you're in the mood for some shock horror and want to see a bunch of screaming children get their eyes poked out, rent this and Night of the Living Dead (the original one) and be shocked at the similarities.
Well I'm neither poor nor innocent....
posted on 08 Apr 2009"The Birds" isn't considered Hitchcock's best film, but for me it's one of his most engrossing. The director's strange obsessions, especially those involving women, show through in the the film's dialogue, characterizations, and even the clothing. It's not really terrifying, except possibly for the climactic attack on the house, but the thing that makes "The Birds" an uneasy experience for many viewers is that the movie is constantly shifting gears.It begins as a screwball comedy, as Tippi Hedren's society girl meets Rod Taylor's handsome lawyer in a pet shop specializing in birds. On a whim, she follows him to his rural seaside home in order to play a practical joke. Then the film turns into a serious romantic drama as the script reveals all sorts of pathos going on between the characters--Annie's scorned affections, Melanie's difficulty in breaking through the barrier of Mrs. Brenner--after which the film shifts suddenly into a series of bird attacks that grow increasingly violent and, inevitably, fatal for some of the less important cast members. What makes it all the more disconcerting is that nothing in the film has any sort of resolution. The only real indication of resolution is when Mrs. Brenner takes care of Melanie in the car as they are driving away from the house, indicating that she may be interested in letting go of her desperate fear of losing Mitch to "another woman". Hitchcock provides no explanation for the bird attacks, and none of the personal dramas are ever really worked out.Given Mr. Hitchcock's reputation for having an eye for detail and a clear concept of his projects, this open-endedness was certainly intentional, although the impulse for some people is to criticize the film for not giving the viewer any sense of closure.Even if you're not enraptured by the dated special effects (staging simulated bird attacks was quite an ambitious goal in the early 60s), there is all that delicious dialogue to sink your beak into.
Better with every viewing
posted on 30 Mar 2009When it first came out, the public was disappointed. It wasn't Psycho and seemed to pale in comparison to Norman's story, but I liked it better than Psycho then and still do today. Along with Shadow of a Doubt and 39 Steps, it is my favorite Hitchcock. I watched it again last night, Halloween, on a VHS tape from several years ago. Today I came to this board; I notice there are 22 pages of comments, so I doubt I can add anything new, but here are some thoughts in general that may engender more discussion on boards:1. The final scene will always stick with you; 2. How many times does Hitch let his heroines enter a room that they should not? This plot device goes back to Mary Roberts Rinehart, but it works every time. 3. Get the wide screen DVD; there is one scene in my 'fit to your screen' tape where Mitch is talking to Melanie walking back to the house, but he is not on the screen. 4. Tippi is gorgeous, but there are times you can hear daughter Melanie's helium voice bursting out. 5. I wonder about the necessity of the scene in the restaurant with the end of the world man, the old lady who studies birds, the mother and kids eating lunch and the fisherman. It is borrowed from many 50's SCI-FI pictures. The purpose, of course, is to give a pause until the next attack, but all the dialog sounds so trite. 6. Is Annie the only teacher in that school? 7. And what did Mitch's father do for a living when they resided in Bodega Bay? Today such a place would be overrun by tourists. 8. I cannot get over the confidence of Hitchcock, to set that first gull attack on Melanie without music. I keep trying to think what Jaws would be like without the pounding score. 9. Then again, sharks do not caw or coo. There were over 100 starlings and blackbirds on my lawn and in the trees this morning, making what sounded like a hideous racket. Yesterday the noise would not have bothered me, but today? 10. Can we make a pact to shoot the first producer or director who announces he or she wants to remake the film?
About as fun as watching paint dry
posted on 27 Aug 2009Normally I adore Hitchcock, but this film... Maybe it was scary when it was released, but today the only thing to notice are the horrible special effects and ridiculous story line. This Apocalyptic film was not in the least suspenseful, just hard to stay awake through. And the ending? Whatever feeling it was supposed to leave me with, I'm sure it wasn't supposed to be disgust. The movie's theme and the character's interaction was slightly thought provoking, but not enough to make it well done. Interesting idea, but I'd have to say it's one of Hitchcock's most obvious failures. Especially when viewed in modern context. The only thing worse is that they made a Birds II !