Unlike many other Alfred Hitchcock films, The Birds doesn’t feature a strong male lead and almost ornamental female characters. This spooky film stars Rod Taylor as Mitch Brenner and Tippi Hedren as Melanie Daniels - a flat and uninteresting male star, and a female lead who, while attractive enough to be an ornament, plays a far more complex character.
The Birds is a story of regular life turned upside down, of nature gone berserk, and of human jealousies thrown into perspective by a greater power. In it, a quiet Northern California coastal community is shattered as some of nature’s most harmless beings - the birds - turn into vicious killers.
This premise might seem silly, but Hitchcock pulls it off and makes it chillingly believable. In the face of this feathered onslaught, the human characters quickly become terrified blithering idiots, able to do little more than try to avoid the millions of sharp beaks coming at them.
Before this craziness takes over, the conflict between The Birds’ female characters - Daniels, a rich girl who has Brenner in her sights, his possessive mother (Jessica Tandy), and his former lover (Suzanne Pleshette) - is more interesting than any of their relationships with Brenner.
Hedren does a solid job as a rich party girl who also happens to be smart, assertive, and troubled by a painful childhood. The other characters are much less compelling, and this film’s main stars - those with wings - make it easy to forget them.
The Birds is an effective horror movie, although in typical Hitchcock style, there is far more scary anticipation than actual gore. The film’s ending is abrupt, and to some perhaps unsatisfying. But it works, telling us that in the end, ‘they’ sometimes win and we can’t do anything about it but walk away quietly.
