Week 47: 'The Birds' [1963]
Source: Blu-ray
I remember watching this many, many years ago and being underwhelmed. I was hoping that I would be pleasantly surprised by this rewatch, seeing it in context with Hitch's other films, and rediscover a lost (to me) classic. Alas, it was not to be.
Chain-smoking socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) arrives in Bodega Bay, 2 hours north of San Francisco, in pursuit of square-jawed lawyer and local heart-throb Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). The women in the town treat her with suspicion, and the birds treat her as pecking fodder. Feathery chaos ensues.
Having set the bar high with 'Psycho', Hitchcock was determined to outshock himself and his audience with this horror. The fact that he tries so hard is admirable, but the fact that he fails is disappointing. In terms of effects, Hitchcock literally throws everything at the camera, as well as his actors. The mix of live birds, mechanical birds and animation is both impressive for its time and convincing. Hitchcock does well, as would be expected, in ramping up the tension between aerial attacks, especially in the playground scene. The slow build-up from one to a handful to the full reveal of hundreds of ravens on the climbing frame is wonderfully handled. Unfortunately, the flaws in the film overshadow these moments.
Hitchcock is let down somewhat by his cast. Hedren is adequate in her first film, but there is no spark in her that shows she was ready for a leading role. Taylor is cut from the same cloth as John Gavin - slightly wooden. Perhaps he was meant to take the whole thing so seriously, but I would have preferred to see the occasional wink to the camera. The supporting cast are much better, especially Suzanne Pleshette as the lovelorn Annie, and Jessica Tandy as Mitch's overbearing mother.
What really let the film down for me was the subject matter. I don't think birds are sufficiently scary. Even in the midst of their attacks, they seemed to be more of a nuisance than a serious threat. The scene in which over a thousand birds swoop down through the chimney skirts perilously close to unintentional comedy to me.
Technically, the film is very good - the mattes, the back projection and the effects of the birds themselves are all excellent. The birds-eye shot of the burning gas station is a stand-out, as is the iconic scene of the children running from the school. A suggestion that Melanie has somehow brought this terror to the town was an interesting idea that was dropped as soon as it arose, which should have been more developed, I thought. The film feels abandoned at the end rather than concluded - another mis-step, I felt.
Taken on its own, and by any other director, this would be considered a highlight film. Coming after 'Psycho', and thus inevitably being compared to it, it feels like a letdown.
I watched the blu-ray from the 'Masterpiece Collection'. Like the film, I was underwhelmed. The film looked unusually soft in places - sometimes purposely so, perhaps, for close-ups of Hedren, or due to the amount of effects on screen. The sound was also disappointing, sounding tinny to my ears.