After PSYCHO, Hitchcock kept shredding nerves with his version of Daphne Du Maurier's short story THE BIRDS, although he only kept the title and premise.
Although reviews were mixed, it has become a classic with writers like Robin Wood and Camille Paglia finding much to extract from the seemingly thin story.
Socialite Melanie Daniels drives to Bodega Bay to play a prank on lawyer Mitch Brenner after he embarrasses her in a San Francisco pet shop. She buys the love birds he pretended he wanted for his sister and leaves them in his family home.
When Melanie is attacked by a gull, it starts a growing number of unprovoked attacks over the next two days on the townsfolk as well as Melanie, Mitch, his emotionally demanding mother Lydia, his sister Cathy and his ex-girlfriend, Annie the town's schoolteacher.
Hitchcock keeps the tension increasingly taut until the silent, haunting end.
Shelf or charity shop? A definite keeper in my DVD plastic storage box limbo. I saw this at an early age and it never fails to draw me in to it's ecological horror and haunting imagery. Some might complain about the unsympathetic characters but I think the cast redeem this. All the women around Mitch are carrying quiet sadnesses - Jessica Tandy is both brittle and pitiable as the lonely widow who knows her smothering will drive her children away while Suzanne Pleshette does wonders with her limited screen time to create a sad, emotionally resonant Annie - and a special shout-out to Ethel Griffies as the straight-talking ornathologist, There has been much debate over the casting of former model Tippi Hedren as Melanie but I really like her brittle elegance which makes her catatonia all the more affecting at the end. The decision to not have a musical soundtrack makes the suspence all the more chilling and considering the effects are now 57 years old, they still pack a nightmare-ish punch: Lydia's discovery of her dead neighbour, the attacks on the school children - with it's now-legendary build-up of Melanie unaware of the growing numbers of crows behind her - the attacks on the town and the Brenner home and the final attack on Melanie in the upstairs room with it's echoes of the PSYCHO shower scene as she wards off the cuts with wildly flailing hands.
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