The Birds Movie Review

Hitchcock's borderline sf chiller is one of the best and most creative Man-versus-Nature shockers. Still wildly original in the way the plot slowly turns from a romantic soap opera – whole first hour details sophisticate Tippi Hedren venturing to a California island community to snare lawyer Rod Taylor despite his disapproving mother – into an environmental nightmare, with bloody, seemingly unmotivated bird attacks poking through the placid narrative until there's nothing else. Only Hitchcock can twist the harmless into the horrific while avoiding the ridiculous; this is perhaps the cinema's purest, most horrifying portrait of the apocalypse. While bluescreen f/x technology has improved considerably since this was made, Hitch's eye for camera placement and editing remains talon-sharp. Based on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier; screenplay by novelist Evan Hunter (AKA Ed McBain), but also inspired by a real-life plague of birds that hit not far from Hitchcock's American home in Santa Cruz (an incident briefly mentioned in the dialogue).

1963 (PG-13) 120m/C Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, Veronica Cartwright, Suzanne Pleshette, Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw, Ruth McDevitt; Cameos: Alfred Hitchcock; D: Alfred Hitchcock; W: Evan Hunter; C: Robert Burks. VHS, Beta, LV MCA