The Birds (1963)

Tagline: …And remember, the next scream you hear could be your own!

The Birds (1963) is a modern Hitchcock thriller/masterpiece, his first film with Universal Studios. It is the apocalyptic story of a northern California coastal town filled with an onslaught of seemingly unexplained, arbitrary and chaotic attacks of ordinary birds – not birds of prey.

Ungrammatical advertising campaigns emphasized: “The Birds Is Coming.” This Technicolor feature came after Psycho (1960) – another film loaded with ‘bird’ references.

Novelist Evan Hunter based his screenplay upon the 1952 collection of short stories of the same name by Daphne du Maurier – Hitchcock’s third major film based on the author’s works (after Jamaica Inn (1939) and Rebecca (1940)).

In du Maurier’s story, the birds were attacking in the English countryside, rather than in a small town north of San Francisco. The film’s technical wizardry is extraordinary, especially in the film’s closing scene (a complex, trick composite shot) – the special visual effects of Ub Iwerks were nominated for an Academy Award (the film’s sole nomination), but the Oscar was lost to Cleopatra. Hundreds of birds (gulls, ravens, and crows) were trained for use in some of the scenes, while mechanical birds and animations were employed for others.

The film’s non-existent musical score is replaced by an electronic soundtrack (including simulated bird cries and wing-flaps), with Hitchcock’s favorite composer Bernard Herrmann serving as a sound consultant. It was shot on location in the port town of Bodega Bay (north of San Francisco) and in San Francisco itself.

Hitchcock introduced a ‘fascinating new personality’ for the film – his successor to Grace Kelly – a cool, blonde professional model named ‘Tippi’ Hedren, in her film debut in a leading role. [Hedren reprised her character in a minor supporting role, in an inferior made-for-TV sequel, The Birds II: Land’s End (1994), set in the New England fishing town of Land’s End. The director was Rick Rosenthal, although the standard generic pseudonym ‘Alan Smithee’ is found in the credits. Leads Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren are replaced by Brad Johnson and Chelsea Field.]

Initially, critics were baffled when they attempted to interpret the film on a literal level and measure it against other typical disaster/horror films of its kind. The typical Hitchcock MacGuffin is the question: Why do the strange attacks occur? But the film cannot solely be interpreted that way, because as the actors in the film discover in the long discussion scene in the Tides Restaurant, there is no solid, rational reason why the birds are attacking. They are not seeking revenge for nature’s mistreatment, or foreshadowing doomsday, and they don’t represent God’s punishment for humankind’s evil.

The Birds is a 1963 American psychological horror-thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on the 1952 story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. It focuses on a series of sudden, unexplained violent bird attacks on the people of Bodega Bay, California over the course of a few days.

The film stars Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren, in her screen debut, supported by Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette and Veronica Cartwright. The screenplay is by Evan Hunter, who was told by Hitchcock to develop new characters and a more elaborate plot while keeping du Maurier’s title and concept of unexplained bird attacks.

In 2016, The Birds was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in its National Film Registry.

The film premiered March 28, 1963 in New York City. The Museum of Modern Art hosted an invitation-only screening as part of a 50-film retrospective of Hitchcock’s film work. The MOMA series had a booklet with a monograph on the director written by Peter Bogdanovich. The film was screened out of competition[22] in May at a prestigious invitational showing at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival[23] with Hitchcock and Hedren in attendance.

Ub Iwerks was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Special Effects. The winner that year was Cleopatra. Tippi Hedren received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1964, sharing it with Ursula Andress and Elke Sommer. She also received the Photoplay Award as Most Promising Newcomer. The film ranked No. 1 of the top 10 foreign films selected by the Bengal Film Journalists’ Association Awards. Hitchcock also received the Association’s Director Award for the film. It also won the Horror Hall of Fame Award in 1991.

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Veronica Cartwright, Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw, Ruth McDevitt, Lonny Chapman, Doodles Weaver, Malcolm Atterbury
Screenplay by: Evan Hunter
Production Design by: Robert F. Boyle
Cinematography by: Robert Burks
Film Editing by: George Tomasini
Set Decoration by: George Milo
Makeup Department: Virginia Darcy, Howard Smit
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: March 28, 1963