DVD/150: THE BIRDS (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

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.

 

DVD/150: REBECCA (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)

Hitchcock ended his British career with the misjudged JAMAICA INN based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier and his Hollywood career began with another, REBECCA, and it remains one of his greatest - his only film to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Despite producer David O. Selznick's interference, Hitchcock's film is a triumph of sustained mystery.

A timid orphan, a paid companion to an overbearing American, is befriended in Monte Carlo by the suave widower Maxim de Winter who proposes to her; although he is occasionally remote, she accepts.

At his mansion Manderley, she finds everywhere the oppressive presence of Maxim's first wife Rebecca who drowned a year before.  Her nemesis is the disdainful, obsessed housekeeper Mrs Danvers who keeps Rebecca's bedroom as a shrine to her beloved mistress.

Vivien Leigh lobbied for the lead role but was considered too forceful a presence, leaving Joan Fontaine to triumph in it.

Shelf or charity shop?  An absolute keeper, for Hitchcock's masterly storytelling as well as Franz Waxman's swooning score, and the performances of Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, the wonderful Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers, sexy George Sanders as Rebecca's cousin and lover, and delightful support from Gladys Cooper, Nigel Bruce and Florence Bates.

Dvd/150: JAMAICA INN (Alfred Hitchcock, 1939)

Wanting to leave England to launch his Hollywood career with an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's REBECCA, Hitchcock first had to make what would be his last British film for 33 years and he disliked it.

Irish orphan Mary Yellen (Maureen O'Hara's first major role) arrives at Jamaica Inn to live with her aunt but discovers her uncle is the leader of a ship-wrecking crew of murderous plunderers.

However the film is thrown off-kilter by the unabashed hamming of co-producer Charles Laughton as the local squire Sir Humphrey Pengallon.  Du Maurier was unhappy her plot was changed to accommodate his over-written role and Hitchcock was unhappy that for the first time he was faced with a star who could overrule his ideas.

The characterful supporting cast mostly follow Laughton's lead but Robert Newton is uncharacteristically muted to the point of invisibility.  He also resembles Harpo Marx!

Shelf or charity shop? For what it is... shelf