Max’s Drive-In Movie – The Birds

The Birds Sign

I watched this 1963 movie growing up and it scared the hell out of me. For a while when I passed a tree full of birds…I always did a second take. Alfred Hitchcock was the master of suspense and the movie works today. Tippi Hedren (Melanie), Rod Taylor (Mitch), Jessica Tandy (Mitch’s mom Lydia), and Suzanne Pleshette (Annie) starred in this movie.

Like The Shining…it’s a movie where you can find deeper meanings or just sit back and enjoy a great film. There is a lot of ambiguity in this movie…everything is not spelled out for you. Why are the birds so angry? Why are they attacking people?

Birds Monkey Bars

Hitchcock built suspense probably better than anyone. I’ll use this one scene for an example. In one scene you see Tippi Hedren waiting outside of the school. You hear the kids singing a song. She looks around and there are some Monkey Bars and you see one bird landing on them. She sits down on a bench and smokes. After a few drags she looks around and there are 3 birds on the bars…repeat this a few times and more and more birds are on them. Then the bars are full of Birds and this is when she gets concerned and asks Pleshette’s character to evacuate the school as birds start dive-bombing the kids. It goes from 0 to 100 in a matter of 2-3 minutes.

That scene set up the action in the cafe that followed soon after… when all hell broke loose in the town of Bodega Bay. No one really believed Hedren’s character Melanie when she told people about the birds attacking. That is until it started to happen outside and they all saw what was going on. This was after the kids from the school were attacked while running toward their homes.

Hitchcock used silence and stillness in scenes better than anyone else not named Buster Keaton. His scenes would draw out the tension and then he would strike. Sometimes he didn’t strike and it keeps you on the edge of your seat. The direction and the acting were great obviously. This movie is 61 years old this year and it still works.

Pleshette’s character Annie was an ex-girlfriend of Mitch and the dynamic between her and  Melanie was fantastic. I also have to mention Lydia, Mitch’s possessive mom, who has a fear of being abandoned. You see the bond between her and Melanie grow as the film goes on.

Most of those birds were real and sometimes tied to Hedren by thread. Many of the cast had some injuries while making this movie.

The Plot from IMDB

Melanie Daniels is the modern rich socialite, part of the jet-set who always gets what she wants. When lawyer Mitch Brenner sees her in a pet shop, he plays something of a practical joke on her, and she decides to return the favor. She drives about an hour north of San Francisco to Bodega Bay, where Mitch spends the weekends with his mother Lydia and younger sister Cathy. Soon after her arrival, however, the birds in the area begin to act strangely. A seagull attacks Melanie as she is crossing the bay in a small boat, and then, Lydia finds her neighbor dead, obviously the victim of a bird attack. Soon, birds in the hundreds and thousands are attacking anyone they find out of doors. There is no explanation as to why this might be happening, and as the birds continue their vicious attacks, survival becomes the priority.

Birds - closing shot

Quotes

  • Boy in Diner: Are the birds gonna eat us, Mommy?

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  • Cathy Brenner: [crying] When we got back from taking Michele home, we – we heard the explosion and went – went outside to see what it was. All – all at once the the birds were everywhere. All at once, she pushed me inside – and they covered her. Annie! She pushed me inside!

Animal Trainer Ray Berwick:  “We had about 12 or 13 crew members in the hospital in one day from bites and scratches,” he said. “The seagulls would deliberately go for your eyes. I got bitten in the eye region at least three times, and Tippi got a pretty nasty gash when one of the birds hit her right above the eye.”

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

83 thoughts on “Max’s Drive-In Movie – The Birds”

  2. Pingback: Max’s Drive-In Movie – The Birds – MobsterTiger

  4. Always a favorite at my house, though a few of my grandkids and their friends don’t like it. Most of them say the acting is wooden. I don’t see it. They say it takes too long for the birds to appear, which is the only reason they’re watching the movie. (I wonder if they feel the same about Jaws? I’ll have to ask.) And I’ve heard them say it’s disgusting that “the lady stalks the guy” at the beginning. I guess looking for a possible relationship with someone is a crime by today’s standards. I always feel the generation gap between us when we talk about movies. All in all, I give it two thumbs up for their thumbs down. It’ll always be considered a great classic by me.

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    1. I never understood that stalking thing…I’ve heard that as well. I have heard of the “takes too long for the birds” as well…
      I guess it depends on what movies they are brought up on. I think it’s much better to build a story like that…plus I think it stays with you longer if you do build a slower story.

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      2. That is me as well. I want to know the characters very well. I guess that is the reason I like King’s books…he goes over them well…sometimes a little too many details but I like it.
        I feel like I could walk down Derry’s streets and know where I am.

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  7. Great analysis. I visited Bodega Bay and the locations from the film. Pretty eerie. I did the same in San Juan Bautista for scenes from Vertigo.

    When I was in a film class in college many years ago I went to a Hitchcock marathon and watched 5 of his works back-to-back. It was a great day.

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    1. I would love to see the Bodega Bay location. I did see a youtube of “then and now” and I really like that school building.
      Oh yea…a Hitchcock marathon…that would be great.

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    1. After I rewatched it after several years…I was still blown away by the suspense and pacing of this movie…great point on the no score….

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  9. Not good PR for poor birds…but a great scary film. Hitchcock movies are often among my favorites & certainly my pick for the best of that era. This one I’ve only seen once, might be time to see it again this month!

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    1. It holds up well…the people in the diner are very interesting on how they interact…I’m happy to see a horror film that doesn’t give everything away in the first 5 minutes…I love how it builds.

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    1. As an adult it still works well…the suspense is great with a Hitchcock film. As a child… it made me wary of birds lol…probably like Jaws and going on to the beach.

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      2. Yes it does….and how they gather at times in bunches….After Jaws our trips to the beach always left me paranoid lol.

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      3. Given we know shark attacks do occur, so keeping a watchful eye out for their fins sticking out of the water is prudent. In my case, I don’t like spending a lot of time on the beach to begin with, not to talk about being the water. I get bored pretty easily! 🙂

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      4. Well I learned my lesson of getting on a float…I floated so far out that I could barely see the mainland…that taught me. Now I just wade out…no deep places for Max lol.

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      8. Max, there is a series I watched on Netflix, called, “Zoo” that you would probably love. It’s about non humans turning on humans. It globe trots and has a fantastic cast. It shows humans fighting for their lives against the rest of the animal kingdom.

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  11. I saw Jessica Tandy on Broadway playing the part of the mother in Glass Menagerie and she was a terrific actress. My best friend’s mother suffered from ornithophobia or the fear of birds, which seems irrational to me.

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    1. That is so cool that you got to see her. I’ve seen a Broadway play before but not on Broadway…I want to one day.
      The movie that I remember her for the most was Fried Green Tomatoes… she appeared in a lot in the 80s and 90s.

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      4. I’m looking at her IMDB credits…she was in 66 movies…it seems like her career went up again in the 1980s. She was great….I looked up Hume and yea I’ve seen him. He acted late in life as well.

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    2. She is a terrific actress and so is her husband, Hume Cronyn. Very cool you saw her live. I saw her and Hume together in the movie, “Batteries Not Included.” That was a really good movie.

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  14. Next up on my chronological Hitch journey ( Need to get Que Sera Sera out of my head from the last one).Good write up Max and yes the silences work. I’m looking forward to settling down with a bowl of bird seed (popcorn) and going for this ride . Good pick fella.
    Oh yeah. I love crows. One of my favorite things.

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    1. Yea to take a safe animal that we see everyday into this…it just works on many levels.
      As much as I am a silent movie fan…I’ve never seen any of his before. I want to check them out as well.

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      1. Up here during mating season crows regularly sweep down on people. They are smart
        Yeah Ive done the Hitch thing a couple times. A few are re watches for sure. He did that thing where he pops onto frame in a lot of his pics. Cant remember if he did it in The Birds. I’ll have to look for it.

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      2. Dang CB…I meant to mention that. I’m not going to say anything… but I remember him in Lifeboat in a newspaper about weight loss since he couldn’t very well walk into that film.

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  15. You know, Max, I was so badly terrified by The Birds I never watched it again. As much as I love watching birds, I’ve always got my vigilance against them “turning” activated. Hitchcock was a masterful suspense artist. I know there are some harrowing stories out there, like how many were injured on the set that you mention, and other, even more unsavory stories, about how he effected that suspense/thrill but there’s no denying The Birds is a hella well-made film. And no CGI!!!!!! I think modern movies have become too dependent on CGI. I like the real thing.

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    1. I know right! You don’t have to have CGI. There are some directors now trying to do things the harder way because it looks more authentic. I hope it catches on.
      But yea…you are not the only one…it scared me bad as a kid.

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      1. The Blade Runner 2049 was blessed with Denis as a director. He rejected CGI for the most part, which, in a futuristic movie isn’t easy. He also directed the Dune reboots.

        How old were you when you saw it? What was the scariest part for you? Mine was the scene where they gathered on the monkey bars that you talked about. Also when they were in the phone booth and that guy crashed into it. The most scary though was when she was in the attic and they attacked her. DAMN

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      2. I think I was around 6 or 7 if I remember right. YES…that is why I highlighted that scene on the monkey bars…it was brilliant by Hitchcock…as kids we knew monkey bars and we have seen birds on them before…so we could relate.
        I agree…the one in the phone booth got to me as well.

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      3. Yes on the familiarity of the scene for kids and then have it become menacing. And when the teacher is quietly walking them away from the school is unnerving!

        That part in the attic, where she is screaming and fighting them off, is bad, but it is when she starts to sink to the floor and they keep attacking that was truly traumatic for me as a kid.

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    2. The helplessness of being on the end of the attack is what the dread that has built up to. It is that slow loading up, the dread weight, the waiting.

      I may have said before Lisa- if so, forgive me- but watching the massive brass statue come to life and the fighting skeletons in ‘Jason And The Argonauts’ nearly had me forgoing my toilet training, in the dark night terror nights that followed my seeing THAT flick.

      Mmmm, I feel a call of nature, a tickle (hopefully not a trickle) of warning coming on just thinking about it.

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    3. Thanks for the heads-up for ‘Invasion Of The Saucer Men’ Lisa. I watched it the other night and it was a fun watch, at least from my older perspective. But as a (wee🙄) kid I imagine I would have been s- soiling myself at that roaming disembodied creeping creepy hand!

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  17. Yes, the slow deliberate build is better than a jump cut and tossing out buckets of blood. (I bet Mr King had tongue firmly in cheek when he wrote that scene in ‘Carrie’ and the result on screen in the movie.) Some modern horror flicks are like a slip’n’slide in the Hienz Ketchup bottling factory.

    I watched ‘Cocaine Bear’ the other day and it left me with as much concern for the cast as I got as a kid watching Elmer Fudd get blown away by a misfire, or Wiley getting that shadowy look in his darkening eyes as an ACME anvil is about to land on him and leave him as nothing but an imprint on the highway. You KNOW it ain’t real, and the victims getting killed don’t move you because the characters aren’t ‘real.’ They’re written too quickly (and too bloody slickly) out of the flick and written off in your mind as Shotgunned Cop #1, Screaming Girl in Halter Top #2, Screaming Girls In Halter Tops #3,4,5, etc. You have to spend the time and get to know them. Hitchcock did that.

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    1. You are so correct…you don’t have any feelings one way or another for them because you don’t know them. You have nothign invested in them.
      The Shining for instance…you know those characters pretty well by the end and the same in this one. Modern ones want to get to the kill count asap because the audience has no patience anymore.
      Screaming Girls In Halter Tops #3,4,5….hmmm….do they jog? … sorry no nevermind!

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  18. This was a real trip down memory lane. Thanks Max. I must have watched this movie ten times in my youth and it scared the heck out of me.Also, I loved Mel Brook’s parody of it as well in ‘High Anxiety’. The sad thing is I haven’t seen this movie again since I was a wee-tacker. I hope someday I can relive this movie gem. Cheers.

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  19. good film, I was a teen when I saw it the first time on TV – though I cant say as I ever took the concept seriously, as I had budgies as pets at the time and having birds on my head and shoulder was pretty normal 🙂

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    1. Oh it bothered me…my mom would not allow pets in the house so…I wasn’t used to tame birds…in fact that rule she had affected me…when I grew up I got a Saint Bernard to live in our house….we have had three…I guess it was my rebellion lol.

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      2. Oh cool…thanks Jeff. I didn’t realize until a few days before I wrote that…that it was an actual place with that name.

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  23. “It goes from 0 to 100 in a matter of 2-3 minutes.” I remember this scene like it was yesterday. My parents showed The Birds to my friends and I when we were just old enough to appropriately enjoy and appreciate a classic horror/thriller. Hitchcock was a pro at gradually turning the intensity level to an 11 right when you get too comfy 🙂 Great review, Max! Full of memories for me!

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