Last night, at the Lovely Missus P&R Fans insistence, we watched the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds". I am a fan of older movies, but this one had me scratchin' my head. What the heck caused all those birds to attack everybody? The movie's ending answered no questions. Did I miss something?

Missus Fan enjoyed it. She had seen it several years ago. I personally liked Tippi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette.

If I had been there, I would have made use of one of my M12 Winchesters. About an ounce and a quarter of number 7 1/2 shot would have done the trick.

Anyway, what do you all think of this movie, and why the ending with no answers?
Jim

You see, the birds were crazy.

If life doesn't make any sense, why should you expect it from movies?

It was based on a novel or maybe short story that didn't offer any explanation for the birds' behavior either. It was just a flick to get your heart beating faster about a situation no one could foresee and that they had to figure out how to manage as they went along. Kind of like zombie movies today.

I saw it when it came out and then a couple times more over the years. Hitchcock made better movies, but this one is a long way from being his worst.

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David Wilson

It's like this here:

1) The birds got really mad about something. Nobody really knows what. Don't matter. They're birdbrains, don't take much to set 'em off.

2) So they started goin' after folks like Tippy Hedrin. She may have preferred that to old Al Hitchcock chasing her all over the set, but no matter.

3) It was a resort community so the availability of 12 and 20 ga. no. 7 1/2 shot was limited.

4) Mayhem ensued.

Lessons--wear a hat, when you look up at a flock of birds close your mouth, keep a case or two of birdshot around, and keep your dang hands off Tippy Hedrin.

The one time I saw it (looong ago), I got the impression that the caged songbirds set the wild birds off in some mystical fashion. Note at the end when the humans quietly left, the songbirds were kept quiet in a covered cage and the hordes of wild birds didn't attack.

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Registration? NEVER!

It was based on a short story. The birds would attack on an incoming tide, that was the only explanation ever given.

I was always confused as to why everyone was so worried. Nobody saw the opportunity for some shotgun practice?!!??? I'm thinkin' you could probably have made good use of a broom, too....

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Even older, even crankier....

alfred hitchcock at his best....

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SWCA#2208
KK4EMO

One of my favorite Hitchcock flicks!

I believe the whole point was to show that things can go real bad, real quick, without any reason and there's nothing you can do but deal with it as best you can.

Kinda like real life.

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Memory of Randy Freas-Rimfired

The "Birds" were mad because Joe Biden "Bought a Shotgun" Bought a Shotgun" and fired it into the air and killed four of them. They vowed at that time to attack the populace and poop on their cars in solidarity with "Jam Em' Up Joe" who blamed hunters for the mishap.

Hitchcock is not Disney. Don't look for nice, tidy, they-all-lived-happily-ever-after ending. It's not even ABOUT endings or explanations. It's about scaring the heck out of the audience. Sometimes a few unanswered questions can add to the fear factor.

That's the whole gag. Why the birds attack is not relevant, it's how the people behaved in the circumstances that interested Hitchcock.

It really happened: Hitchcock's motive behind The Birds

Turns out the birds had eaten anchovies and squid that had consumed toxic algae containing a naturally occurring poison called domoic acid. Kinda like LSD for seagulls.

Fascinating. And I have to say, Hedren looked mighty fine for 83 in the interview!

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Oh well, what the hell.

The birds didn't go "crazy", they were just displaying their inner Jurrasic Park; they are, after all, distant cousins of dinosaurs.

I prefer to think they are little dinosaurs.

As for bird behavior, what do you expect with brains the size of pinto beans? Just look at "Jersey Shore".

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Oh well, what the hell.

Birds are omens of dire happenings. They just combined this with the birds taking part in the mayhem. Interesting, but hardly enough substance to build a movie around. I'd say the birds was something like a pre-shark movie. That is, show how many ways people can be killed.

I guess no one in town had a BB gun.

If they made the movie today, they would blame it on "climate change" or some other BS.

Already been done. In "The Core" the pigeons in London go nuts because the Earth's magnetic field was going wonky.

It's a Prequel to the Angry Birds game :-)

There was another movie that I saw many years ago - can't recall the title or even much of the movie - but there were birds (or perhaps it was bats) and they either flew into or out of the earth from a rupture as from an earthquake and as I recall (fuzzily) in the movie they were sort of like flying charcoal briquettes - definitely a B movie but scary as a youngster.

After The Birds came, one night, my brother and I had a gallon jug full of water and were pretending to be getting drunk and wishing each other Happy End of the World as one of the characters in the movie did. Half an hour or so after we had finished off the bottle we had to fight over access to the restroom.

No, no...It's all George Bush's fault. ;-)

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Rick, W0FG
CTR2 68-72

The term "birdbrain" was coined for a reason. Stereotypes would not have become "stereotypical" if they were not often true.

"Birdbrain?" Now there's a conspiracy for you.

Dollars to doughnuts the notion that birds are dumb is a carefully designed viral marketing plot by the Ravens and African Grey Parrots to get us laughing about how out of it they are while they take over the world from the featherless bipeds.

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David Wilson

Had a real nice Mercedes Benz in it!

Tippi was a nice one.

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Back to back World War Champs.

My cockatiel read this and said that humans are not allowed to know this. He said don't bother looking for a black helicopter or putting on your tinfoil hat because you'll just look daft when the ravens find you.

I enjoyed watching Tippi Hedren maneuver in and out of that row boat in that 60's skirt and heels. She had it all goin' on.

Somebody said something about seagulls on LSD, man can you imagine the bombs them fellas would drop. Those beach buzzards are some nasty suckers.

The main reason to watch any of his films is to spot Alfred in some scene.

I liked many of his other films better. It's all about camera angles and building suspense.

IMDb: Alfred Hitchcock Films in Order of Quality - a list by chrislaw28


"There is no explanation. Hitchcock himself answered that question by saying, "If you provide an explanation for the phenomenon then the film becomes science fiction; we're not making science fiction, Birds is a thriller, hence we leave out any explanation." The fact that it is never revealed to the audience why normally peaceful birds suddenly start attacking humans is a technique that Hitchcock used frequently in his movies. It is called a MacGuffin (or McGuffin), which Hitchcock defines as "The plot device, of little intrinsic interest, such as lost or stolen papers, that triggers the action." (Quotation from Halliwell's Filmgoers Companion). Just as the audience never finds out what is written on the stolen papers or what the secret formula is for, the audience is never told what or why the birds started attacking. Some suggestions in the movie are that the birds are massing to migrate, that they have lost their way in the fog or the dark, that they are panicking, that they are being fed bad chicken feed, that the children have bothered them, or that they are attracted to light. Some viewers, however, see the movie as a metaphor for various things such as changing the rules by which humans see the world, the strength of mob mentality in something as small as a bird, the fact that nothing is certain about life, Melanie's guilt for the things she did in her wilder days, the birds' retribution for humans putting them in cages, etc. Some also believe that the lovebirds Melanie brings to the town may be the cause of the other bird attacks."

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Still Running Against the Wind

I wonder if algae-fed anchovies and squid have been offered in the Senate cafeteria???

Did Alfred have a scene in the Birds? I looked and didn't see him.

After seeing the movie, I know I spent a lot of time looking upwards.

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Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

http://www.empireonline.com/features...-cameos/31.asp

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

I saw that flick first on TV one Sunday night at a student center while I was attending Auburn in '67-'68. The TV area was crowded - it was supposedly a great movie. My date was next to me on the couch - I had my arm across the back of the sofa - and had to peck her shoulder with my left forefinger when the birds drove Hedren's character (?) into the phone booth. My date screamed, jumped up, and ran to the ladies room, having soiled herself. Yeah, that relationship was doomed. Oddly, whenever I see 'The Birds', I think of that.

I know why no one had a shotgun... they were in a very blue state! Seriously, that was filmed in a different time... depicting a different time. It wasn't bad, but it certainly was no 'Psycho', either. Today's remake would clearly have Zombie birds - "The Flying Dead". Hmmm, maybe a use for my Governor??

Stainz