Of The Birds, for the Birders?
words by Eric Houghton
The weather is getting colder, the nights are growing longer, and we’ve watched our bird friends head south for warmer climes; time to put on a scary movie and embrace the Halloween vibes. And what better spooky movie for birders to enjoy than The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock?
Arguably Hitchcock’s most famous film, or at least a close second behind Psycho, The Birds is peculiar for a horror movie. The first half of its run time is basically a romantic comedy. The fright takes a while to arrive, but it’s all part of Hitchcock’s plan to lull the audience into a sense of normalcy before pulling the rug out from under them.
After an encounter at a pet store in San Francisco, the rich, beautiful, and extraordinarily overconfident Melanie, played by Tippi Hedren, chases after hunky lawyer Mitch, played by Rod Taylor. Melanie’s complicated plan to get closer to Mitch involves buying a pair of Lovebirds, driving to Bodega Bay, sneaking into Mitch’s house, and giving the birds to Mitch’s younger sister Cathy. I know it was a “simpler” time in the 1960s, but the ease with which Melanie is able to obtain Mitch’s address and gain access to his house is shocking by today’s standards. Melanie’s a firecracker, but she's also a bit of a stalker.
Like the aforementioned Psycho, The Birds also features a vaguely creepy relationship between a mother and her son. Mitch’s mom, Lydia Brenner, played by Jessica Tandy, is not a fan of Melanie or her hijinks. Mom is extremely protective of her boy, and Hitchcock revels a bit in playing this relationship up for the audience. Ultimately, the domestic-drama-meets-screwball-comedy elements take a back seat once the birds begin to attack en masse.
While we’ve been distracted by Melanie and Mitch’s budding romance, the birds in Bodega Bay have slowly been building up for the inevitable showdown. We get a few hints that something is amiss as the story moves along. Lydia’s chickens have mysteriously stopped eating, a seagull pecks Melanie on the head while she’s navigating across the bay, but nothing truly prepares us for the savage attacks to come. Part of the brilliance of The Birds is how ordinary everything seems leading up to the “birdpocalypse.” We’re lulled into a false sense of security by the bucolic peace of Bodega Bay.
When the birds finally attack in earnest, the effects are chilling. In one scene, a swarm of “sparrows” swoops down the chimney of the Brenner home and attacks the family inside. Some of the birds used in the scene are sparrows, but they augmented the flock with a variety of other birds from pet stores. Whichever species they may have been, the frenzy of birds is truly frightening.
From a birder’s perspective, The Birds has some cringe-inducing moments. The birds in the film tend to get lumped into three basic groups: sparrows, crows, and seagulls. It seems like the citizens of Bodega Bay aren’t very well versed in bird identification. In one scene, it’s clear that most of the birds gathering for an attack are Common Ravens with some American Crows thrown in, but the townsfolk are satisfied to lump them all together as simply “crows.” Additionally, the sound effects used to replicate the bird cries are hilariously not birdlike. I’m pretty sure that some of the sounds used are sped up cat screeches, but I wasn’t able to confirm that. Regardless, the distorted and amplified calls and cries of the birds are there for shock value, not necessarily for accuracy.
The one lone voice of ornithological correctness, Mrs. Bundy, isn’t the most flattering representative of bird lovers. She’s a shrewish, snippy know-it-all, who doubts the mounting evidence around her, pointing to a serious issue with the birds. She dismisses the eyewitness accounts of her fellow townspeople with this doozy of a quote, “I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. Why, if that happened, we wouldn't stand a chance! How could we possibly hope to fight them?” Even the so-called expert doesn’t seem to know too much about the birds of Bodega Bay.
In the end, the birds' motives are never revealed, and there is no clear ending to the peril. Hitchcock intentionally leaves the mystery unsolved, adding to the sense of unease. He famously did not use the conventional “The End” title card at the end of the movie in order to keep the audience in a state of discomfort long after the movie was over.
While it might not be on the same level as Jaws in terms of demonizing a specific animal for generations, The Birds has to be a close second when it comes to shaping the general public’s perception of birds. The next time you’re visiting the Magic Hedge, and a territorial red-winged blackbird takes a swipe at your head, try not to think of the poor folks of Bodega Bay