The Birds

Rating:
Summary: Still a classic
Review: The movie remains a classic and even more so when one considers it was made before the computer and digital work that is commonplace in movies now. Hitchcook was a master of presenting images and the editing and music add much to the scenes. With this new release, I was a bit disappointed in the quality of the transfer. There are blemishes throughout and the picture seems less than pristine. I doubt this is a restoration copy. In fact, one of the background pieces in the extras seems in sharper color than the movie. However, this does not take away the fact that this movies stands the test of time as a wonderful suspenseful movie by a master craftsman. Released as a new DVD the same time as Psycho, this has fewer bells and whistles. But, it still is a gripping and greatly visual movie with a truly chilling ending.

Rating:
Summary: The secret of "The Birds"
Review: Alfred Hitchcock said that "there is a terrifying meaning lurking right underneath the surface of The Birds." This meaning has heretofore been kept a strict secret among British and American intellectuals. After a long and feverish struggle with my conscience over the matter, I've decided that for the benefit of mankind the sequestering of this knowledge must cease -- and what better time than on the film's 40th anniversary!

The knotty root of this secret is contained in the title itself. A cursory glance at a dictionary of British slang will give you the translation bird=girl. The explication of the various connections that the film makes between the weaker sex and the avian order is left to the reader.

There's not much more to it than that. The film is frequently misclassified by the uninitiated: it's not a horror movie, not a man-vs-nature tale, not a piece of science fiction (the latter category was explicitly disavowed by it's creators). It is simply Hitchcock's allegory about the destructiveness and ugliness of the female psyche in its various manifestations -- mother, lover, rival, child, friend.

But to say that Hitch was a misogynist would only be half right. Like his Plato, Dr. Sigmund F., he took a dim -- dark, really -- view of the whole race. In fact, Hitchcock slaved himself so thoroughly to Freudianism that he made a separate assessment of the value of his own work problematic. How deep can an allegory go? Culture critic Camile Paglia thinks "The Birds" is more profound than I do. It's really only as deep as Siggy himself, but art can and should be deeper than psychology -- or any science. Four stars, not five.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent. My favorite Horror Movie to Date
Review: Okay, let me preface this review, by saying that "The Birds" is my all-time FAVORITE Hitchcock horror movie. Tippi Hedren stars as blonde bombshell, Melanie Daniels, a wealthy, but fun-loving socialite. When Melanie runs into hunk lawyer played by Rod Taylor, she is intrigued, and decides to purchase a gift - a pair of lovebirds- for his sister. Melanie travels up north to Bodega Bay, a small-town on the coast, to deliver the birds, unaware that she is unwittingly driving into danger- the birds, driven by unknown malice soon begin attacking the town and its residents.

Okay, the birds is quite simply fantastic. The scenes actually shot in Bodega bay were really cool. The birds made excellent and implacable enemies, and I liked the character of Melanie, who is a spunky and resourceful heroine, (I liked the fact that she cold handle an outboard without a man to help her! And in two-inch heels to boot).

Overall, an excellent, Excellent film.

Minor peeves: Hitchcock has Melanie driving through Big Sur to get to Bodega Bay. This was funny. Big Sur is located in Southern California and is about 2.5 hours /south/ of San Francisco. Also, I felt the ending was rather abrupt. There was no resolution! Or any understanding WHY the birds go berserk! LOL. This movie is a great movie. Definitely a keeper.

Rating:
Summary: Alfred Hitchcock as only he could...
Review: I ordered this movie for a film class that I was teaching. I wanted to show horror, classic horror not the trash that shows up so often today.

I was not disappointed in the movie. It had my 13 year olds at the edge of thier seats by the end of the movie. Just goes to show you that Hitchcock can even appeal to the modern, over-exposed students of today.

The beginning is longer than expected, however, when the action of the story starts, it snowballs. The suspense that Hitchcock creates is the best part of the movie with my students trying to guess what is going to happen next and alternatives not matching what is given to them.

I would definitely recommend this movie as an alternative to the messes that pass for horror and suspense nowadays.

Rating:
Summary: 4.5 stars
Review: As fake as this movie is, it'll still effect you if you don't pick on the bad special effects all the time. This is a very effective horror film buy Al Hitchcock. Not as scary as Psycho, but effective none the less. Starts slow, but ends with a bang. Watch alone in the dark.

Rating:
Summary: Lovebirds and Hatebirds
Review: It's strange that Alfred Hitchcock only directed two films in his entire career that could be termed "horror" movies, since he was quite a fearful person in real life. His diffident nature found expression far more often in the anxieties and tensions of the suspense genre, and in his own peculiar warpings of film noir such as "The 39 Steps," "Rear Window," "Vertigo," and "Frenzy." It was the psychopathologies inherent in modernism and urbanization that animated Hitchcock more than subjective states of mind ("Psycho" being, perhaps, the sole exception to this rule). Hitchcock, in other words, was a "clinical" director of anxiety: the opposite of a film like "The Birds" is not Clouzot's "Diabolique" or Polanski's "Chinatown," but rather "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" or the 1962 version of "Carnival of Souls."

The remote and aloof quality of "The Birds" is in marked contrast to the Daphne du Maurier story on which it was based. Hitchcock's clinical detachment, however, stems from a widening of focus. For example, with the exception of a few key scenes (such as the one near the end where Tippi Hedren is attacked by birds in a darkened attic), "The Birds" shows people terrorized as parts of small or large groups rather than as individuals. It's collective rather than individual terror, so that whereas the mood of du Maurier's story is claustrophobic throughout, the terror in Hitchcock's film stems from collective experience in open spaces (e.g., the attack on the school children near the middle of the film, and the attack at the seaside restaurant, where entire groups are shown under blistering siege). This unfortunately dilutes the terror, even as it enlarges the cinematic canvas.

Of course, it was necessary for Hitchcock to expand the story, which was really no more than a novelette running about 30 pages in most editions. So he introduced padding, particularly the love interest revolving around Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor ---- this, along with the clinical approach of the film, detracts from the story's original focus and frustrates audiences who may arrive with different expectations. In this sense, we might call the movie "a horror film for people who hate horror films," a criticism which might also be applied even more accurately to other "mainstream" horror productions like "The Uninvited" and "The Bad Seed."

Not everyone will agree, of course, and they'd have some grounds for disagreement. For example, on those rare occasions when Hitchcock does vouchsafe an individual focus (e.g., Jessica Tandy entering the house of a victimized farmer, or the attic scene previously mentioned), the effect is very powerful. Unfortunately, these moments are rare, and are interspersed with so many irrelevancies and banal conversations that many viewers will find their attention wandering.

Having said all that, I consider "The Birds" a superior film in the horror genre, and, typically for Hitchcock, there are many things to admire on a technical level. But because of (1) the sterile approach to the material, (2) the mostly "agoraphobic" (rather than claustrophobic) atmosphere, and (3) the gratuitious love interest, I could never rank it as a personal favorite. "Psycho" is another matter entirely, and for those looking for real intensity and undiluted focus, that is the film to watch.

Rating:
Summary: Beneath the surface...
Review: I'm a big Hitchcock fan, and "Marnie" is my favorite Hitchcock movie. I like Tippie Hedren. She is the typical cold, blonde heroine that Hitchcock favored, but my, what subtext! As an actress, it's what you want to achieve, especially on screen: the sense that there is much going on under the surface that is never vocalized. The scene that the other reviewers talk about in their reviews--the gas explosion with the flashes of Tippie's face, for example--are kind of campy now, but even through the campiness there is a sense of unease. There are many scenes in this movie that are just gems of tension and subtext. The scenes between Tippie and the mother, between Tippie and Suzanne Pleshette: the actresses and the screenwriters don't make the obvious choices and that's part of what makes these movies so fun to watch again and again. The scene with the woman birder in the cafe is very enjoyable. The minor characters in these old movies have major impact. While not a great movie, it is worth having in your collection if you enjoy tension, great acting and writing, and a few giggles at the melodrama.

Rating:
Summary: Hmmmm...
Review: 'The Birds' Is kind of a 50-50 movie. At times, if you've never seen it before, it can be a little, well, shocking. The plot, however is actually very thin, and the movie virtually has NO ending. I don't like sayng anything negative about a Hitch movie, I'm typically predjudiced in his favor. This movie, however, is rather mediocre. Buy it and watch it, you might like it, but give 'Psycho', 'Rope', and 'Rear window' a try too. They're considerably better.

Rating:
Summary: Allegory of Shakespeare's "The Tempest"?
Review: I was very impressed with previous reviewer LividEmerald2's correct observation that "the birds are a metaphor for the psychological conflict of Mitch's mother, who must cope with the idea of abandonment that would inevitably result from the relationship her son might forge with a woman." This strikingly reminds me of the plot structure of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" with the genders reversed. Of course this would not be the first sci-fi/horror allegory of "The Tempest." We must not forget the psychological conflict of Professor Morbius in "Forbidden Planet."

Rating:
Summary: Hitchcock's second to last worst film
Review: In fact, the only hitch film worse than it is To Catch A Thief. The so-called Master of Suspense masters mostly boredom and dullness throughout the movie. If you can get past the first 50 minutes, though, you'll be okay. The definate highlight of the film was when a man drops a match on a trail of gas. It blows up, and you are shown four stills of Tippi Hendren's terrified face. It was supposed to be serious, but it was hilarious. My brother and I watched it over and over again; it cracked us up.
Eventually, the film has SOME good parts with the attacking birds; but those scenes could sometimes be disappointing. Really, I do not recommend seeing it.