The Birds movie review

Justin Thaxton
Mr. Armstrong
English 1// 4^th hr.
12 October, 2010

The Birds

The Birds did not meet expectations. The movie, based off of the book written by Daphne du Maurier, was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was projected to be an academy award winning movie but was quite frankly atrocious. This was definitely not one of Hitchcock’s best work. It was meant to be a horror film but turned into a comedy because of the inadequate special features. He has some serious work to do if he wants to keep being a director. The special effects are outdated and the script is monstrous.

Alfred Hitchcock’s movie takes place in San Francisco in the early sixties, where bachelor, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), meets your typical movie blonde named Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren). The two flirt with each other and Melanie is very interested in Mitch. She suddenly decides to go see in his home town of Bodega Bay which is just north of San Francisco. Mitch visits his sister Cathy (Veronica Catwright) and his mother (Jessica Tandy) on the weekends. Mitch’s ex-girlfriend, Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), also lives in Bodega Bay. When she arrives with two love birds to give to Mitch as a joke, the towns people are giving her weird looks because the birds in their area were acting strange. When Melanie decides to rent boat to drop the love birds off at Mitch’s house then return to see how Mitch would react. They would soon meet and start to like each other, even when Mitch’s mother doesn’t approve of Melanie.  This is when things go bad. The birds start their attacks, the first one at the service station on an attendant. He then drops a gas which spreads over the area. A civilian watching lights his cigar and drops his match in the gasoline. This then causes an enormous explosion. The birds then taunt the people. This is only one of the many attacks.

This films special effects were ghastly. They were obsolete compared to other movies of this decade. Some of the birds were clear to the viewer that it was phony. There are many ways that I believe he could have made this movie better just with newer special effects. It was quite humorous seeing the special effects because they were so dreadful that you couldn’t even call them special.

Alfred Hitchcock needs to improve his script and cast. The script was mediocre in some places. He could have the movie more about the birds and less about Mitch and Melanie’s Relationship. His cast was not up to standards either. Their acting was appalling throughout the movie. You shouldn't be able to tell it is an actuall movie. It should feel like you are really in the storie.

I don’t deem The Birds worthy of winning any kind of academy award anytime soon. They might have a chance if they got more sophisticated special effects, a revised script, and a new cast.