Line #30 Film/TheBirds


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_birds_original_poster.jpg]]
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3	''The Birds'' is a 1963 suspense/horror film directed by Creator/AlfredHitchcock, [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] the [[Literature/TheBirds short story of the same name]] by Creator/DaphneDuMaurier. The film's innovative special effects, soundtrack, and apocalyptic theme influenced later "[[GaiasVengeance revenge of nature]]" disaster films.
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5	Melanie Daniels (Creator/TippiHedren) is a young UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco socialite who decides to follow lawyer Mitch Brenner (Creator/RodTaylor) to his home in Bodega Bay, California. She apparently picks the wrong time to visit. The birds of Bodega Bay are becoming increasingly aggressive and soon every human being around comes under attack, with Annie Hayworth (Creator/SuzannePleshette), a close friend of the Brenners, becoming one of the early casualties.
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7	Unlike most other films of its era, ''The Birds'' doesn't have a music score or an ending in the conventional sense. The soundtrack was supervised by composer Music/BernardHerrmann; bird cries and wingflaps were played on an expanded Trautonium[[note]] an early electronic synthesizer [[/note]] (called the Mixtur Trautonium) by Oskar Sala, assisted by the German composer Remi Gassmann.
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9	The screenplay was written by Creator/EvanHunter. Creator/UbIwerks helped out with the special effects involving the birds. There was a [[MadeForTVMovie made-for-TV]] sequel, ''The Birds II: Land's End'' (1994), with a new cast of characters (and Ms. Hedren gamely contributing a cameo as a shopkeeper). [[{{Sequelitis}} It fared poorly.]]
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11	----
12	!!''The Birds'' provides examples of:
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14	* AbsurdlyElderlyMother: If the character's ages are the same as their actors, 54-year-old Lydia has a 33-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter. Which is actually completely possible, but the vast age difference between the siblings (plus Lydia looking much older than 54, as well as Cathy actually being younger than her actress) has led to considerable speculation that Cathy is actually Mitch's daughter.
15	* ActorAllusion: In Melanie's first scene when she's walking down the street, a kid wolf whistles at her and she gives him a smile. This is a reference to a commercial Tippi Hedren had done where the same thing happened. When Hitchcock saw her in the commercial, he put her under contract immediately.
16	* AfterActionPatchup: Mitch treating Melanie's head wound in the diner. This scene depicts the beginning of a friendlier relationship between the two of them.
17	* AndStarring: "And Introducing 'Tippi' Hedren." Technically not true, since she'd had a small uncredited role in 1950's ''[[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042844/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_84 The Petty Girl]]''.
18	* AntagonistTitle: The titular flocks of birds that attack the townspeople.
19	* ArtisticLicenseOrnithology: The whole premise is that birds are not behaving like they always do.
20	** Birds attack humans in huge swarms for no apparent reason.
21	** Birds of different species start flocking together.
22	** Chickens refuse to eat perfectly good seed for no apparent reason.
23	** The sounds that birds make are heavily stylized and often sound more like snarling cats than birds.
24	* AuthorAppeal: Bird motif (this more explicit than other films) and an icy blonde lead actress.
25	* AttackOfTheKillerWhatever: In this case, birds.
26	* TheBadGuyWins: The infamous ending, which indicates that the birds have succeeded in taking over the town, [[spoiler:and quite possibly the entire country]].
27	* BalloonBurstingBird: During Cathy's birthday party, the birds pop a number of balloons.
28	* BatScare: While the evil avians are a recurrent threat, their final attack, as Melanie enters a room and finds it's filled with them, must fit.
29	* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Averted and played straight. Melanie's hair does (eventually) get disheveled, and she gets some nasty head wounds towards the end. But for all the running and falling down, her clothes are always perfectly clean and free of wrinkles.
30	* BigBad: The birds themselves. Interestingly, they don't quite cause the conflict so much as they ''are'' the conflict itself; their attacks kickstart and drive the plot, and they are not as much characters as they are a full-scale living doomsday scenario.
31	* BigNo: Well, how would you react if you were attacked by birds in a small room, sending you into a catatonic state, and then your friends tried to guide you outside into a landscape of staring birds to get to the car? Naturally Melanie flat-out refuses, at first.
32	* BittersweetEnding: See NoEnding below for the details. However, Lydia and Melanie share a tender moment in one of the last shots, implying that the old woman has come to care for her - and that the trauma may have actually bonded them.
33	* BreakTheCutie: This is Melanie's main character arc. She starts sure of herself, and her last line in the film is a PTSD-fueled RapidFireNo when she sees that getting to the car will involve marching through a humongous bunch of birds.
34	* BreakTheHaughty: Mrs Bundy the ornithologist is a pompous AgentScully who refuses to believe that the birds are attacking. The last we see of her is after the chaos in the town - and she's visibly stunned into silence.
35	* BrokenBird: Pun aside, [[spoiler: Melanie is reduced to a catatonic wreck after getting attacked by birds in the attic]]. It was a similar [[CreatorBreakdown situation for her actress]] in real life too.
36	* TheCameo: Richard Deacon, well known to 1963 audiences as ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow''[='s=] Mel Cooley, as Mitch's neighbor in San Francisco.
37	* CassandraDidIt: Melanie is the one who argued against the ornithologist who said birds lack the ability to flock together and attack, and immediately after an attack is blamed because the attacks started after she arrived.
38	* CassandraTruth: It takes a very long time for the main characters convince the law enforcement that birds are attacking, them chalking it up to coincidence. Not until the largest attack on the town occurs do they start investigating.
39	* CerebusCallBack: As everyone plans to flee the house, Cathy begs to bring the love birds Melanie got her as a present -- reminding everyone of the reason Melanie ended up in Bodega Bay in the first place.
40	* CreatorCameo: In true Hitchcock tradition, the director can be seen walking two dogs out of the pet shop at the start of the film.
41	* CreepyCrows: A fair segment of nature's battalion here, and [[MascotMook are strongly associated with this movie.]]
42	* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: While Annie admits she still has feelings for Mitch even after their relationship failed, her death at the hands of the birds halfway through the film prevents it from culminating into anything.
43	* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: The movie opens with a romantic-flirtation plot.
44	* DiesWideOpen: [[spoiler:Annie]]'s eyes are open when Mitch finds her dead. We see them only for an instant before he shields them with his hand.
45	* DisappearedDad: Frank Brenner, Lydia's husband and father to Mitch and Cathy, died some time prior to the events of the film. Lydia talks about missing him during a conversation with Melanie.
46	* DisproportionateRetribution: One of Mitch's clients shot his wife in the head ''six times'' for ''changing the channel when he was watching a ball game''.
47	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Annie is found lying on her back with her legs splayed--as if she's been raped. The attack in the attic can also have shades of this, some points looking like the birds are holding Melanie down as they peck different parts of her body as well as her gasping in pain.
48	* DramaticIrony: We see the crows congregate behind Melanie as she ignorantly smokes a cigarette.
49	* DrivesLikeCrazy: Melanie races down the windy road to Bodega Bay, her engine roaring and tires squealing. The lovebirds in the car are shown leaning left and right with each corner.
50	* EstablishingCharacterMoment:
51	** Melanie pretends to be a pet shop clerk to have an interaction with a handsome man. After Mitch calls her out, he notes that she's been in legal trouble for a prank. Both of these points establish that Melanie is a free-spirited and bold young woman, the kind of person to drive 60 miles for a flirtatious game.
52	** Mitch reveals that he already knew that Melanie wasn't a pet shop clerk and was simply messing with her because he recognized her from court. This establishes Mitch as a lawyer who is nonetheless playful.
53	* EyeballPluckingBirds: One scene depicts a person whose eyes are pecked out by a flock of birds.
54	%%* FeatheredFiend: Type B.
55	* FiveSecondForeshadowing: Melanie sees a sparrow in the Brenners' fireplace just before dozens of them come pouring into the room through the chimney.
56	* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's plenty of actual foreshadowing in the first half of the movie -- Melanie taking time to notice a swarm of seagulls in San Francisco, and attention to lots of birds sitting on telephone poles.
57	* FowlMouthedParrot: The reason Melanie orders the mynah bird at the beginning of the film. She planned on teaching the bird a few of the "semantics" she picked up in a college class at Berkley before giving the mynah to her uptight Aunt Tessa.
58	* GaiasVengeance: Characters speculate (and Hitchcock implies in the trailer) that the birds are attacking as vengeance for man's abuse of nature.
59	* GreenEyedMonster: Though she's completely forthright about her feelings and even encourages Melanie to do whatever she feels is right, Annie can't help but be jealous about Mitch's interest in Melanie. This is most pronounced when she grimaces when Melanie finally accepts Mitch's invitation to Cathy's party.
60	* GrudgingThankYou: Lydia thanks Melanie in this way for taking care of her after a nervous breakdown.
61	* HalfwayPlotSwitch: It starts off feeling like a romantic comedy, and takes its time getting to the real point. Then lots and lots and ''lots'' of angry birds happen, turning into a horror movie.
62	* HarmfulToMinors: The birds attack children at Cathy's party and the school.
63	* HatesBeingAlone: Lydia's turmoil stems from this, due in large part to her husband passing away. She reveals to Melanie that this is why she's reluctant to accept Mitch getting together with anyone, since it could potentially mean he'll also leave her.
64	* HeroicBSOD: Melanie enters a catatonic state after [[spoiler: the final attack in the attic]].
65	* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: Cathy's Birthday is the day the birds attack in full.
66	* HotTeacher: Annie, the teacher of Bodega Bay, was once a lover of Mitch's. The character was rewritten to younger and sexier once the actress was cast.
67	* HystericalWoman: After the big bird attack in town, one of these confronts Melanie and calls her [[HarbingerOfImpendingDoom the cause of all of this]] because the attacks started the day Melanie arrived.
68	-->'''Woman''': I think you're evil! '''EVIL-!''' (gets [[ShutUpHannibal bitch-slapped by Melanie]])
69	* IdiotBall:
70	** A bunch of people, including police, perform some first aid on a man while ignoring the gas pump gushing out fuel like a firehose onto the street.
71	** Melanie checks out suspicious flapping noises without letting anybody else know.
72	** No one makes any effort to shield themselves from bird attacks, like throwing a quilt over their head. Cathy is the only person who thinks of wearing extra layers, and she's only seen doing this in the very last scene of the film.
73	** Our heroes keep passing up opportunities to simply drive out of town, with weak justifications.
74	* ImprobableInfantSurvival: The birds attack a group of children twice in the film, but all of them survive. There's mention of one needing to be taken to hospital, but ending up fine.
75	* InNameOnly: Well, ''technically'' it's based on the du Maurier short story. The screenwriter actually had read the short story, but Hitchcock specifically told him not to bother with it, as all he wanted to use was the title and the core premise of birds attacking people. [[DisownedAdaptation Needless to say, the author Daphne Du Maurier was not pleased with this.]]
76	* IronicNurseryTune: Sung by the schoolchildren as crows gather on the jungle gym.
77	* ItsQuietTooQuiet: There is no music at all in the soundtrack, not counting the singing children.
78	* KillAllHumans: The birds only attack humans and do so indiscriminately every few hours.
79	* LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine: Playful blond socialite Melanie is Light, while no-nonsense brunette schoolteacher Annie is Dark.
80	* TheLostLenore: Gender-inverted. The true cause of Lydia's reserved attitude for much of the film stems from how much she's been struggling to move on from her husband's passing and how she feels inadequate to fill the void in the family's lives left by him on her own.
81	* MamaBear: Lydia is said to be overprotective of Mitch, though Annie asserts that she's just scared of being left alone.
82	* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Melanie begins the story appearing to be one, quirkily flirting with Mitch and getting into all sorts of scraps. It gets rapidly deconstructed when the horror starts.
83	* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: The birds silently gathering on the playground equipment behind Melanie.
84	* MissingMom: Melanie's mother has been gone for years. She's implied to be a DaddysGirl as a result.
85	* MommasBoy: Mitch spends every weekend with his mother, and Annie asserts that Lydia is overly protective of him.
86	* NoEnding: [[spoiler:The birds enter their resting phase and allow the characters to leave the besieged house. You never find why they started, or if they'll start attacking again.]]
87	* NonIdleRich: Mitch is surprised to learn that the wealthy socialite Melanie has a job. In fact, she also studies at Berkley and does charity work. She explains that she got fed up with not having any purpose.
88	* NoodleIncident: Melanie's mischievous character is established by reference to a prank she pulled that resulted in the shattering of a plate-glass window. Though she supposedly had to appear in court because of it, the nature of the prank is never explained.
89	* NothingIsScarier: A classic example. the movie never reveals ''why'' the birds are attacking. This only serves to make it prime ParanoiaFuel.
90	* OhCrap:
91	** Melanie has this reaction when she sees a single sparrow flying down chimney...just before a whole flock of them swoop down and attack everyone in the house.
92	** Melanie's face after seeing a massive flock of birds gathered next to the school.
93	** Lydia, though a subdued version, when the man who sold her the chicken feed mentioned he had a call from another customer that ''his'' chickens wouldn't eat either (and had a different feed brand).
94	* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Rod Taylor keeps lapsing into his natural Australian accent in the last half-hour.
95	* PrettyInMink: Melanie is a beautiful and high-class lady who wears a fur coat for much of the film. Her outfits were designed by famed costumer Edith Head.
96	* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: Uses diegetic sounds and electronic bird noises in place of a musical score.
97	* RiddleForTheAges:
98	** Why the birds are attacking and why they seem to attack in waves are famously never resolved. We don't even know if their attacks will ever end or if they'll spread across the country.
99	** We never find out why the chickens wouldn't eat and if this is related to the attacks. Did all of the birds suddenly turn into strict carnivores?
100	** We never learn whether Cathy's lovebirds are afflicted by the same issue. Is it because they're from San Francisco and not local to Bodega Bay? Is it because they're domesticated birds? Is it because they're in a cage and simply never had the opportunity to go crazy?
101	** Did Melanie go skinny dipping in the Roman fountain like the newspapers said, or did she get pushed into it while fully clothed? Melanie points out that the newspapers have a good reason to drag their competitor's daughter through the mud, but she's also lied about herself before. We never find out the truth.
102	* RuleOfSymbolism: The story practically invites you to interpret the birds as an allegory for whatever you find threatening in the real world. Especially the restaurant scene, where you have unresolved arguments between someone who thinks the world is doomed, someone who denies that the threat could even exist, someone who claims the threat has always existed, and someone who points out that the important thing is to try to stop the threat. Especially keeping in mind that the original short story was allegedly inspired by the Nazi air raids on Britain during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
103	* SceneryPorn: Hitchcock and cinematographer Robert Burks make good use of the photogenic Northern California coastline.
104	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: A lot of people realize that the bird attacks are confined to the local area, so they flee. Our main characters refuse to, with Melanie even calling her father to tell him that she ''can't'' leave due to the emergency. A mother dining in the cafe with her two children decides to make a b-line out of town, but the birds attack her on her way to her car, forcing her back inside. In the end, [[spoiler:our heroes finally decide to just drive away. A news report indicates that they're one of the last people. The final shot is of them hitting the road]].
105	* SpeciesTitle: An AntagonistTitle about a (literal) murder of various birds.
106	* StupidScientist: At one point, the main characters meet Mrs Bundy, an ornithologist, who denies that the birds of various species are going out of their way to attack humans. She is seen with the other diner patrons after the first truly large-scale attack. She doesn't say anything, instead simply huddling against a wall and glancing over her shoulder. It's pretty obvious that she's realized how wrong she was.
107	* SuicideAttack: Whether or not they know they'll be killed, some birds die ramming onto doors and glass.
108	* TooDumbToLive:
109	** May also apply to the guy from the bar in the gray hat and suit who was ranting about how nasty birds were before going out to lead the lady with her kids out of the town, who lights his cigar over spilled gas which he somehow didn't notice as a result of the attacking birds. Given that he was also kind of a jerk he may also count as an AssholeVictim.
110	** None of the characters takes even basic precautions against getting pecked bloody, such as wearing gloves or wrapping their arms with cloth.
111	* UnbuiltTrope:
112	** It's truly amazing how similar some moments in this movie are to a [[ZombieApocalypse zombie horror film.]] With the masses of weak but overwhelming killers, the shock at the outlandish idea that such creatures could ever attack, barricading houses and hysterical survivors, you could easily see this as Hitchcock putting his own stamp on the conventions... but zombie movies wouldn't come about [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968 for another five years.]]
113	** One of the earliest films to use DevelopingDoomedCharacters. Except here the horror comes as part of a HalfwayPlotSwitch, the attacks build up and the developing is all about justifying why Melanie is in Bodega Bay in the first place.
114	* TheUnreveal: We never do learn exactly what is causing the birds to attack.
115	* VomitDiscretionShot: Cathy gets nauseous with anxiety after a bird attack, prompting Melanie to take her off screen to the bathroom. The sound of her puking is euphemistically rendered as coughing.
116	* WhamShot:
117	** Of the man's [[EyeScream eyes pecked out]].
118	** We've seen a few crows begin to congregate on the jungle gym behind Melanie's back. When she finally notices a crow flap its way to the playground and land on the jungle gym, it's covered in ''dozens'' of birds.
119	** In the end, when Mitch peaks out at the path from the doorway to the car, the ground is completely carpeted in birds.
120	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Melanie gets a pet for her aunt that she is implied to pick up before she buys Cathy the love birds. She says later that she was going to teach it to talk before giving it to her aunt, implying it's back in her apartment in San Francisco. She had only planned to stay in Bodega Bay a couple of hours, which means the pet went the whole weekend without food (unless Melanie phoned a friend to look in on it). FridgeHorror if that one went ballistic like the other birds too.
121	* WolfWhistle: In the opening scene Melanie gets one of these from a little kid, to whom she turns and smiles. This was apparently an ActorAllusion to a diet soda commercial Tippi Hedren had appeared in, which Hitchcock had seen.
122	* WouldHurtAChild: The first two mass bird attacks happen to groups of children.
123	* ZergRush: A bird or crow isn't very dangerous by itself, but hundreds represent quite a threat. The ornithologist notes that there are billions of birds in North America alone. Humans wouldn't stand a chance in a war against them.

Context Film / TheBirds