January 19

I watched The Birds. It is a cold snowy evening and I have a headache. I like the start of the story with Rod Taylor following and fooling Tippi, but it seemed to last forever. The tweeting of all the birds went through my head, jaw and down to my shoulder. Tippi bought birds to take to Rod as a gift. Rod was out of town and helpful neighbor told her were he was and how to get there. On the drive down, the birds sat in their cage on the floor of the car. The scene shows Tippi's leg and the birds. The birds sway to show the movement of the car. If you are looking at Tippi's leg you may miss that, but I thought that was a great shot. She gets to the island and leaves the birds in his house. She sneaks away and Rod finds the birds and sees her. He gets in his car and goes along the road to meet her boat. As she gets closer to the dock a gull hits her head. “That's the damnedest thing I ever saw” Rod states. I love that line. The movie has very fast paced editing. There are a few scenes were back and forth dialog and the actors were seldom filmed in the same shot. In one scene with Susanne Pleshette (1-31 Birthday) Susanne is on the couch or moving around and Tippi is in a chair. The camera stays on the person talking, back and forth until a phone call. Tippi talks on the phone in the background and Susanne is in the chair in the foreground. The most dramatic or realistic scene to me, was when the women are holed up the hallway and they blame Tippi for the bird attacks. It reminded me of all of the disaster films where the survivors gather.

I like how birds are in almost every scene, either in a cage, flying, sitting on a wire or on the ground, background noise or just mentioned. Other than the single gull that gets Tippi and the two love birds, the birds are in large flocks. They look like a swarm of bees.

Hitchcock's suspense builder on the film was to hold it on a single shot until the audience can't stand it anymore. This was used for the most famous shot in the birds. Tippi is smoking a cigarette waiting for school to end. At the beginning of the shot there is one bird on the jungle gym and the camera stays on her and stays on her and stays on her until it cuts to a single bird overhead, the camera follows the bird to the jungle gym where it is full of birds.

This is the only film I have ever seen Tippi Hedren appear. In the DVD extras she talks about how she was a model when Hitchcock spotted her. She is very beautiful and graceful. There were a lot of close ups of her and the green outfit she wore really showcased her beauty and bone structure.

If this weren't a Hitchcock film I think it would have been a campy cult horror film. I admire all the actors, crew and staff but I just don't get the film. Every Hitchcock film I do watch my esteem for him grows. He was a great filmmaker.