The Birds

1 9 6 3 (USA)

A tense and terrifying thriller crafted by the master of the suspense genre, Alfred Hitchcock.

Beautiful Blonde Tippi Hedren buys lovebirds for Lawyer Rod Taylor and follows him to his family place in the small coastal town of Bodega Bay, California. There, for no apparent reason, flocks of birds turn on the human species.

The movie was based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier, and following her lead, Hitchcock offers no explanation for this avian revolution, thus making the film even more mysterious.

The performances by the players are a bit up-staged by the special effects, and Tippi Hedren's acting is manikin-like. But the suspense, after the first half hour, never lets up. Like his other horror classic, Psycho, The Birds preys on our primal fears and never misses an opportunity to surprise us.

The film's underlying emotion, enhanced by the clever use of electronic sounds in place of more conventional background music, is menace, and in this respect Hitchcock certainly delivers the goods.

Even when nothing happens you feel it is about to, and your heart is in your mouth.

Though much of the back-projection is obvious, and the special-effects quite transparent, the overall atmosphere created through the low-key direction gives the film its reputation as as one of the most purely cinematic of the entire Hitchcock oeuvre - the great fire sequence being the film's most memorable set-piece.

The cast also includes Veronica Cartwright, Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw and Ruth McDevitt. The bird trainer in charge of all the anti-social behaviour was Ray Berwick.