cineSOURCE magazine

Hitchcock’s The Birds: Why?
by Davell Swan

After a sheltered and lonely childhood, Alfted Hitchcock published his first story at 19; it concerned a young woman being assaulted in Paris until she realizes she's actually at the dentist hallucinating from anesthesia. photo: courtesy Universal Studios

Editor's Note: Many people consider Marin County, just north of San Francisco, a wonderland where gorgeous nature is perfected by its proximity to chic civilization. Not Alfred Hitchcock. In "The Birds", 1963, he turns beautiful Bodega Bay into a disaster zone of out of whack nature, both animal and human. The area is typified by empty fields, ominous rock outcroppings and frequent fog but he shot it in glorious sun. He liked to play against type, to increase the shock. And he chose every detail with the utmost of care to symbolic potency both for his audiences and his own private dreamscape, as Dave Swan explores below and will do for "Vertigo," 1958, in our upcoming San Francisco issue.

Hitchcock apologists will crawl through burning barbed wire to explain his use of obviously fake effects such as rear projection, cheesy models and unconvincing back drops, particularly regarding work from the 60s and into the 70s. His 1964 "Marnie" has proven to be especially subject to tortuous critiques. Even some who herald Hitchcock's massive accomplishments have given short shrift to the quasi-documentary style of "The Wrong Man", 1956, fearing "Hitch" may have lacked an adequate understanding of cinéma vérité.

The not-uncommon knowledge of his apprenticeship to the German Expressionists of the 1920s—especially his being on set while F.W. Murnau made his silent and intertitle-free "The Last Laugh", 1924—seems to have taken precedence over something much more obvious. Hitchcock was an expressionist filmmaker, both in the specific sense of not being an "impressionist," and in the general sense that he was influenced by the Germans. But he transcended them. His paranoid and terror-stricken purview produced a kind of horror that can only be described as surrealistic.

Yes, Alfred Hitchcock was a secret-surrealist, masquerading as merely the Master Of Suspense. Much like Luis Bunuel, one of "H."'s faves, he loved mocking the middle class, despite his contrived persona as an English bourgeois. With his concept of "pure cinema", Hitchcock utilized surrealist technique in many uniquely cinematic ways: to increase suspense, to foster deep dread and paranoia and to foment unlikely occurrences, bizarre coincidences, anthropomorphism, and of course, horror. His use of a swivel chair and a swinging light bulb to animate Mrs. Bate's terrible corpse in "Psycho", 1960, is a perfect example of this.

So is "The Birds" score, which is one step beyond that of "Psycho," in other words, nothing, a soundtrack sans music, although the heroine does play Debussy's "Arabesque Number One in E" on the piano and the school children sing "Rissle-dy, Rossle-dy." All the film's sound effects come from an electronic instrument known as the electroacoustic Trautonium, invented by Dr. Friedrich Trautwein. The soundscape was created by Oskar Sala, who improved the instrument, Remi Gassmann, a composer for the Trautonium, and Bernard Herrman, H.'s composer for eight projects in a row, from "The Trouble With Harry", 1955, through "Marnie".

Teppi Hedren's Melanie meets Rod Taylor's Mitch in a pet store, albeit not for the first time, which was in court, when he saw her being tried for a prank. photo: courtesy Universal Studios

Shot in San Francisco and Marin County, "The Birds" is an anthropomorphic nightmare. Or daydream. Hitchcock shows what would happen if these lowly creatures we've been caging and cooking all these years developed an intelligence equal to their monstrously primitive id and decided to make their own justice. Even before the introductory credits, there's a bad omen. As the familiar Universal Studios globe appears, it's overwhelmed by avian screeching. Similarly, as soon as we meet Melanie Daniels, the incomparable Tippi Hedren, on what's obviously a San Francisco street—an actual cable car passes by—she responds to some wag's wolf-whistle and notices a covey of birds above—threatening.

Suddenly, Melanie's inside an upscale purveyor of pets to pick up a mynah bird. She's accosted by a handsome shopper Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) who appears to believe she's a sales clerk. Being a practical joker, Melanie goes along with the charade, which we all enjoy, until a bird escapes its cage and, just as with some of her other pranks, chaos ensues. Mitch catches the errant animal, puts it back behind bars and remarks: "Back into your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels," just as she's approaching a moment of severe paranoia.

It would seem that Mitch is an attorney and was present in court when Melanie was in the docket for a practical joke that resulted in a broken plate glass window. He notes his disdain for her frivolity and exits. But she's intrigued and manages to get his license number as he coincidentally drives past in his 1962 Ford Galaxie 500 Victoria. Then she calls the editors' desk of the newspaper her father owns, and browbeats a reporter to find his name and address.

We see Melanie enter the lobby of Mitch's apartment building carrying a cage with the two lovebirds he'd been looking for—her excuse to see him again. The medium shot is tilted down, so we see the expensive carpet of the lobby, the cage and Melanie's shins. When she enters the elevator, we tilt up revealing Richard Deacon (Buddy's foil from the Dick Van Dyke Show). As he looks toward Melanie, we pan with him and see her preposterously smug look. It's over the top, but makes all the sense in the world Hitchcock is weaving.

Bearing a gift of two love birds in a cage, Melanie hunts Mitch on land and sea even after a bird of hate starts attacking her. photo: courtesy Universal Studios

Deacon tells her that Mitch goes away every weekend to Bodega Bay. Pondering the 60-mile drive, her expression ever-so-slightly indicates she's decided to go find him. Subtle facial-work is common in Hitchcockian characters when a momentous decision is made.

She's now on her way, in her rare 1954 Aston Martin DB2/4 drop-head coupe, taking corners with abandon. As she leans her body into the turns, we see the two love birds in the cage do the same. This near-impossibility is reminiscent of a scene in Hitchcock's "Strangers On A Train", in which the spectators at a tennis match move their heads in unison following the ball while the villain, Bruno, is conspicuous for continuing to look straight ahead.

The second she hits the town of Bodega, she's being stared at by the townspeople for her overly-glamorous get up, complete with a mink stole. Soon she has the smitten codger at the combination general store and post office doing everything imaginable for her. Leaving the store, she looks down the hill and sees a green Ford truck similar to that of Mitch's mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy), whom we'll meet later.

Melanie learns that a teacher named Annie Hayworth, Suzanne Pleshette, who lives next to the big old school house, will know the name of Mitch's sister, for whom the birds are intended. Annie's house is hard to miss with its garish red mailbox while the teacher herself is wearing a bright-red "I'm-in-heat" sweater. She's in love with Mitch Brenner and is an "open book" we come to understand.

Melanie drives to the dock—using a sports car to catch a man, much as Francie Stevens does in Hitchcock's 1955 "To Catch A Thief". She's followed by a mad 1960 Chevy Impala, whose oversized fins and truncated roof reminds one of an elegant denizen of the deep. Her blithe elegance while renting a boat and stepping into the crummy little craft, troubles the man helping her. As she crosses the bay, she sees Mitch and his mother in the distance. Their scale compared to Melanie is extreme, amazingly tiny, very strange.

The spooky old schoolhouse still sits on the hill above Bodega, empty. photo: Lynne Kasuba

Walking toward the Brenner family house, her point of view is one of motion parallax, a favorite H. effect, also used in the climax of "Vertigo". It causes the trees between her and the house to seem to move sideways. As she surreptitiously leaves the two birds inside, with a card addressed to Cathy (Veronica Cartwright), Mitch's sister, one of the love birds looks at the card with anthropomorphic interest. Later, she'll be trapped in the same living room with less benign but equally intelligent-seeming feathered friends.

Sneaking back to the boat, Melanie observes Mitch exiting the house carrying a pair of binoculars. (Hitchcock's characters occasionally use lense-based objects, notably Jeffries in "Rear Window", 1954.) Mitch glimpses her hiding in the vessel and speeds away to get around the bay to meet her at the dock. His car seems to have a mind of its own, as it expressively races. Mitch beats her to the dock. Well aware that he's attracted to her, Melanie tilts her head with more smug satisfaction until a gull swoops down cutting her forehead.

They walk to the Tides Cafe, past the phone booth where Melanie will be caught in another bird attack. As they enter the cafe, a large-finned Rambler and fish-mouthed Buick seem to watch from the parking lot. Melanie mentions Mitch's desire as a prosecutor to put all practical jokers behind bars, while continuing her trickery, claiming she's in the area to visit her friend, Annie Hayworth, whom she knows is Mitch's old flame. Later, she rents a room from Annie for the night.

The following day, Melanie goes to dinner at the Brenner place. Prior to getting out of her car, she applies what seems to be 3-D red lipstick. Coincidentally, Lydia, Mitch's mother, is wearing the same shade. Later, Lydia is revealed to be a widow, afraid of being abandoned whenever her son meets an attractive woman. This explains her coolness toward Melanie—along with what she read in a gossip column about Melanie cavorting naked in a fountain in Rome, Italy.

Original poster for the film, although there were numerous others due to its popularity. photo: courtesy Universal Studios

In seeming casual conversation, we hear that Lydia's chickens are refusing to eat; they're not "fussy chickens" she says on the phone to the local feed vendor, as if they had more than a few brain cells. Cathy, the sister, tells Melanie about her attorney brother, saying, "He knows lots of people in San Francisco, of course they're mostly hoods. He spends half his time in the detention cells at the Hall Of Justice".

Cathy invites Melanie to come to her birthday party the following day. Although it is supposed to be a surprise party, Cathy knows and will pretend to be surprised: more trickery. As she is leaving, Melanie is cross examined by Mitch, who professes a strong desire to see her again. She also notices a large number of suspicious creatures massed on a power line.

At the party, Mitch and Melanie take a pitcher of cocktails up a sand dune where the kids are playing games. They reach an understanding, as she talks about the Rome incident and becomes upset, discussing her mother who left when she was eleven years old (the same age as Cathy), and who's whereabouts she doesn't know. As they descend the hill, both Annie and Lydia register unhappiness over the soon-to-be-love-birds' new closeness. This is immediately followed by the first big attack. Wearing a blindfold and playing Blind Man's Bluff, Cathy bossily tells the other kids, "Hey! No touching!" but in fact she's being grazed by birds.

As the evening progresses, Lydia encourages Melanie to return to SF, while Mitch and Cathy do the opposite. Melanie then intones - "Mitch..." as first a bird and then hundreds cascade into the living room through the fireplace. She covers Cathy with a blanket, as Lydia cowers and Mitch fights the vermin. Melanie takes Cathy and grabs Lydia, going into a closed-off room. Some of her prize tea cups failed to survive the attack and Melanie's going to stay; Lydia looks sad.

Here's Melanie the following morning, in the quaint guest room, wearing her general-store-bought night gown. Though she's applying more red lipstick, she has a very calm, natural air. Meanwhile, Lydia's pulling into the ranch of one Dan Fawcett, who's chickens have also become fussy eaters. She circles the driveway in her 1956 Ford F-100, Custom Cab longbed, truck and stops, letting the clutch out early for an evocative lurch. Dan doesn't answer and Lydia deeply penetrates his home, much the way Melanie did her home earlier. More broken tea cups, which makes her nervous as she nears his bedroom, still calling out. Bad news—with three successively closer shots we see that Dan's eyes have been pecked out.

Speechless, she ends up careening away in the bellowing truck, tiny on the screen and with a big trail of dust, which adds to the impression that the truck's upset too. Lydia goes to bed, worrying, while the newly involved Melanie brings her tea and then agrees to go get Cathy.

Sweet little children being attacked by crazed coveys of birds, you can almost hear Alfred cackling. photo: courtesy Universal Studios

This may have been a bad idea since Melanies presence at Annie's school seems to attract a large flock of birds, who end up chasing the kids, now crying, down the hill (see clip). Melanie gathers up Cathy and a simpering girl inside a much be-finned, anthropomorphic Dodge station wagon. A 1961 Chrysler, with viciously canted headlights, along with sharp fins, waits. She reaches for the ignition key but—though everybody left 'em in the car back then—they're gone! She honks the horn but to no avail. Worse yet, the big 120 mile per hour speedometer is blatantly-placed above the dashboard, as a tease.

Later, Melanie's back at the Tides and is on the phone yet again, this time to her dad. Unlike early on, when she called the paper for a favor, she's now filing a story. This scene is packed with black comedy: a scared tyke who asks his mom if the birds were going to eat them, a drunk at the bar who believes it's the end of the world, an ancient English aviary expert who claims their brain pan's too small for intelligent thought and a waitress with an order for a Bloody Mary.

At a nearby service station, a beserking bird dive bombs the attendant, makes him drop his hose and sends fuel down the incline toward a traveling salesman about to light a cigar. Seeing this, the people in the cafe yell to be careful, but the distracted salesman burns himself with the match and drops it into the gasoline causing a horrible conflagration, for which we're literally presented with a bird's eye view.

Shockingly, as the vile creatures fly into view, they caw their approval and we realize this is all part of a "plan." The fire crew arrives but, much like the gas station attendant, are clumsy with their hoses and splash streams of water everywhere except at the fire.

The birds almost get Melanie in the phone booth: punishment for her constant calling for favors? photo: courtesy Universal Studios

As punishment for constantly talking on the telephone, Melanie becomes trapped in the phone booth as the avians suicidally fly into it, smashing the glass in a pattern similar to the cracked vent pane on Lydia's truck. Mitch drags her to the safety of the Tides, which is now apocalyptically empty—everybody's hiding in the back. The mother of the kid who was scared of being eaten, berates Melanie, screeching as loud as any of the birds that she's responsible for their behavior. Melanie gives her a serious slap and the tension is broken.

By the way, where's Cathy!?! Oh, Annie took her home. Upon hearing the gas station explosion, Annie went outside for a better view and was set upon by feathery reptiles laying in wait. One more attack occurs, in the house when the group is asleep in the living room. Melanie hears something upstairs. "Mitch?" she whispers, in vain. She gingerly ascends the stairs, opens the door slowly, and finds... nothing—until countless winged demons suddenly soar through a hole in the roof and thrust themselves on her (especially those tied to her clothing by the crew). She falls against the door, trapped. In reality, after the hellish week of shooting this much of the story, a bird actually cut one of Tippi Hedren's eyelids and production was temporarily suspended.

Mitch, assisted by a revitalized Lydia, pulls Melanie away from the birds but she's a bloody mess and must be taken to a hospital, somewhere. As Mitch goes outside to get the car, countless feathery creatures festoon the landscape, as far as the eye can see. A small one gives him a sharp purposeful bite on the hand. Another nips his trouser with a satisfying chirp. Lydia and Mitch bring Melanie outside; the previously-smug socialite reduced to a barely ambulatory zombie. As dawn's light hits her face, she's about as attractive as a female Bruce Dern, who she now greatly resembles.

Cathy sweetly inquires, "Mitch? Can we bring the love birds? They haven't harmed anyone." Safely in the back seat, Melanie gives Lydia a look of trust and appreciation while Lydia acts as if she's gained a daughter rather than having lost a son. This meaningful monster movie is ending as it began, with a pair of love birds, albeit with new human analogues. As the newly-completed nuclear (and now homeless) family slowly drives away from the home, they've evidently abandoned to the birds, the creatures murmur approval— their plan has succeeded.

Hitchcock doing his traditional bit part in all his movie at the beginning of 'The Birds' at the pet store. photo: courtesy Universal Studios

Or was there a plan? Hitchcock himself has suggested that Melanie's sin, that she was so severely punished for, was "complacency." But many of his heroes and heroines are complacent, initially, and there's a completely different way to approach this. The story goes something like this:

"Hitchcock was in an unusual state of emotional upset during 'The Birds' [and] those most closely involved knew it had to do with his strange fixation on Tippi Hedren," writes Donald Spoto in "The Dark Side Of Genius: The Life Of Alfred Hitchcock", 1984.

Around the time of "The Birds"' production, Hitchcock had convinced Grace Kelley to return from Monaco, for one last screen role, as the lead in "Marnie", which was to follow "The Birds". But he blundered by bragging to a reporter that her sexual appeal "was the finest in the world," thereby upsetting the citizens of her municipality, whose protests caused her to drop out of the production.

"With this alteration in his expectations another change was noticeable in his work with Tippi Hedren," Spoto continues. "He began to take unusual care in the rehearsal and preparation of every shot... He also started to take her aside for longer story conferences about the film, which made her increasingly more uncomfortable. On and off the set, he was constantly staring at her, as she and others vividly recalled." Spoto goes on to quote Hedren as saying Hitchcock expected her to plan her social calendar with his approval, and that he became hurt if she failed to do so. It would seem that from Hitchcock's perspective, to create a living character with an actress makes her director privy to a secret world, shared only by the two. The holding of this secret would apparently lead to a proprietary feeling on his part, that added up to something too special for a platonic relationship.

It has been noted that Hitchcockian causality or script arc is often a character's fault, along with that of the voyeur/viewer. Characters may unleash The Chaos via an interpersonal conflict or a desperate need for adventure. Regarding "Rear Window", one could imagine that the layed-up Jeffrie's terminal boredom eventually inspired the murder he witnessed.

"(E)ach incident with birds follows a scene describing a character's fear of being alone or abandoned," Spoto says, and we can go further with this thought. Note that each attack comes after Melanie's beauty is visibly noticed by a male other than Alfred Hitchcock, as her relationship with Mitch grows, or she causes jealousy in Annie Hayworth, who's a stand-in for the director via her initials. This includes the concern on her face as Mitch and Melanie descend the hill united, which she shares with Lydia, who in turn is connected to Hitchcock by her tea cup obsession.

Thus, the attacks appear to be driven, both conciously and subconsciously, by Hitchcock's personal, confused, love and jealousy of Tippi Hedren herself, but expressed in the world surrounding Melanie Daniels, their shared creation!

Tippi Hedren, right, in 2010, looking in good in black leather pants, with her dear friend, Diane Baker, another formidable starlet from that era and the current director of the Academy of Art film school. photo: D Blair

Moreover, if we ponder Dan Fawcett and the Brenners being chicken farmers, and the film's representations of our disregard for the beasts we eat and use daily for our vanity, there is a good case to be made that the answer to the question of "Why the birds are waging war against us?" to be simply getting even.

Conversely, Robin Wood states in " Hitchcock's Films," 1969, that "the birds... are a concrete embodiment of the arbitrary and unpredictable, of whatever makes human life and human relationships precarious... and...a reminder... of the possibility that life is meaningless and absurd." Wood adds, "(A) Hitchcock film is more analogous to a poem than a novel."

This could well be interpreted as an invitation to sit back and enjoy the multi-faceted, Hitchcockian experience, the way the characters move, speak and dress, in the context of their built-world and whatever surrealistic surprises and horror the Master has in store, without bothering to ask, "Why?"

Next month, our resident Hitchcockian explores "Vertigo" and its implications for San Francisco.

Dave Swan is a car collector, the publisher of the hot rod, kustom kar-oriented magazine Garage Organ/GO, the leader of the subpop group The Longshoremen and the producer and anchor with partner Heather McCollom of the San Francisco public access show "Doghouse."

Posted on Aug 25, 2011 - 06:16 AM