Why I Can't Listen to Flying Rat music

For many years I have been the bane of my new age friends, who listen to New Age Music. You know what I'm talking about: the sounds of water (I like that) coupled with the screech of sea-gulls. I realize that always, deep in the center of my little pea brain there lurks the possibility that the BIRDS will turn aggressive. For that I can thank Alfred Hitchcock. The Hitchcock induced paranoia begins in 1963.

Hitchcock's success at creating suspense and terror has always been based on the mundane turning terrible. In a day when computer images were not possible, the special effects afforded by this CLASSIC movie are mind-boggling. Hitch was also able to find the best of the industry to produce the effects he sought, from Disney studios and beyond. The movie was based on a short story, by Daphne Du Maurier. The expanded version, in a screenplay by Evan Hunter created a masterpiece of sight, sound and vivid imagery that still packs a hard punch to any audience.

The reason it works is that there ARE documented instances of bizarre bird behavior, and occasional unexplained attacks on human beings. Of course, the attacks are never really explained and we have no idea what the future holds for our hero and heroine. Maybe in Bodega Bay, they are still waiting.

THE PLOT:

Melanie Daniels, spoiled society girl, with a penchant for practical jokes, goes to a pet store to buy a Mynah bird for her aunt. A man comes into the store, a lawyer, Mitch Brenner, who plays a practical joke on her, pretending to mistake her for a clerk, and watching her free a finch accidentally, catching the finch with his hat. She doesn't leave with the Mynah Bird, and he doesn't get the love birds he sought to buy for his sister's birthday.

Melanie special orders the love birds and goes to deliver them to his apartment in San Francisco, only to find he has left for the weekend to Bodega Bay for the weekend. She is determined to play this out, and goes to his home to deliver the birds. When she finds she can't "sneak up" by a back road, she rents a boat to deliver it to his home unseen and waits in the boat for him to discover her little surprise. This is the scene for the first attack.

Melanie is in the boat, on her way back across the bay, and Mitch is driving around to intercept her. She sits picture perfect, fur coat, legs crossed with nary a run in her stocking, with the beautiful backdrop of the sea and sky behind her. Suddenly, she is dive bombed by a sea-gull, her hair-do destroyed and blood welling up.

It seems odd, but isn't taken seriously. However, each event leads to another. The chance that these two should meet, followed by the attack of the gull, and the sympathy created for the beautiful blond are magic plot devices. The relationship starts to show a little promise as Melanie agrees to stay on for dinner.

Annie Hayworth is an old girlfriend of Mitch Brenner. Melanie poses as her college friend and asks Annie to let her stay with her, since Annie has a room to rent. The girls talk, about Mitch, his mother and his sister.

Cathy is thirteen and full of wide eyed enthusiasm and energy, and becomes an instant friend to Melanie. Lydia Brenner is a widower whose greatest fear is that she will be left "alone". She is immediately put off by the rich newspaper mogul's daughter, and knows of her jet set pranks.

At the dinner party, something is wrong with the chickens. They won't eat. When Melanie gets back to Annie's, a second phenomenon is witnessed. A gull lies dead, bombing the front door. Then the next morning Lydia goes to the Fawcett farm and finds Fawcett dead from a bird attack. From here the horror multiplies and the pace is fast. The birds attack, and then fall back. They attack again. There seems to be a rhythm, but the attacks are ALWAYS a surprise and always terrifying.

The first FILMED attack of mass proportions occurs at the birthday party, complete with screaming children. More attacks follow, with one of the most horrific being the birds massing outside the schoolhouse and the headlong run of screaming children as birds of all kinds swoop and peck at the fleeing children.

I have often wondered WHY they just didn't leave Bodega Bay. However, when you think about it, the possibility of birds attacking with PURPOSE is so fantastic, your rational mind just wouldn't accept it. And you SHOULD be safe inside your own home. Hah!

SPECIAL EFFECTS

The birds, in all their forms and fancies were filmed in many special ways. There were fake birds, trained birds (one with a special affection for Tippi Hedren and one with a special animosity for Rod Taylor). There were birds attached by wires to the heads and clothing of the performers. There were birds on guy wires in a collision course with human beings. There were mechanical birds. There were background shots of birds, filmed by tossing food in various settings, and there were birds released behind false doors. There were birds flying at the actors in reality as well.

One interesting collaboration was with Disney studios. It eliminated some of the blue halo effect of superimposing shots on pre-filmed backdrop. In this film the blue-screen was replaced with the sodium process, perfected by Disney. Ub Iwerks consulted to make this a very believable film.

In addition, the film used a professional painter, to create some of the most impressive images(which were painted and filmed frame by frame) The entire backdrop for Bodega Bay village was a meticulously painted landscape, against which explosions, and "Bird's eye" view scenes could be filmed. It was unique and really quite beautiful.

THE CAST

TIPPI HEDREN as Melanie Daniels. (You may know her as the mother of Melanie Griffiths) Hitch discovered her as her modeling career was about to wind down. She had a brief movie career 9 years previously, but modeling was her bread and butter (or maybe just the bread) She has the quality of being able to "hold a pose" that must have been imperative to maintain when the birds (real or imagined) were upon her. It is not her acting, but her lovely face that makes this movie so disturbing.

ROD TAYLOR as Mitch Brenner. Mel Gibson was NOT the first Hollywood hearthrob to hail from Australia. Ever the voice of reason (in the days when Hollywood portrayed lawyers as respectable) we knew him as the Time Machine man.

SUZANNE PLESHETTE as Annie Hayworth. Annie was a school teacher who was still in love with Mitch, who had moved on to Melanie. I liked this actress until she became the regular on the Newhart show, where she became somewhat mundane, instead of the dark haired beauty, capable of great passion. I was pretty young at the time of this movie and prone to flights of fancy. She did make Annie a REAL person, though.

JESSICA TANDY as Lydia Brenner. Has there EVER been a movie where this actress did not shine? I know of none. She plays an intricate character with sensitivity to her strengths and her weaknesses.

VERONICA CARTWRIGHT as Cathy Brenner. Not a picture perfect sweet faced little girl, she was a thirteen year old in the somewhat awkward transition phase. She was VERY believable as the little sister.

ETHEL GRIFFIES as Mrs. Bundy, the octogenarian ornothologist. Over eighty at the time she is delightful as the scientific defender of the birds, who she stated simply did not have the "brain pans" to initiate a coordinated attack. There is a priceless scene where she holds a lighted match FOREVER (for her cigarette) expounding on the nature of birds.

RECOMMENDATION

If you haven't seen this movie without commercials, I recommend it, without distractions. It is an experience you won't forget. The extras include commentary from many of the performers and the screenwriter and are well worth your attention. I especially love some of the STILL shots of the performers and Hitch with birds perched on his head. I won't be staying at the Bates Motel and I will avoid getting chummy with Sea-gulls.