bernadettestclair.wikispaces.combernadettestclair.wikispaces.com/file/view/The+birds+pa… · Web view“The Birds” by Daphne Du Maurier The Short Story. The story is taken from

The Birds by Daphne Du MaurierThe Short Story

The story is taken from a collection now called The Birds andother Stories, but the anthology was originally called The AppleTree and was published by Gollancz in 1952.

Your comments on Nat Hocken should point out how his qualitiesenable him and his family to survive the trauma of the birdattacks.

DO NOT SIMPLY RETELL THE STORY!

STAND BACK AND ANALYSE THE HERO.

1. The first page (p. 51) of the tale mentions Nats disability.He did not work full time. How did this fact help him combat thebirds? In the course of the story, does Nat complain of beingdisabled? Is he unable to tackle certain jobs because of hiscondition. One reader said Nat was a Superb ambassador for thedisabled. What do you think he meant by this?

2. On page 51, Du Maurier says Nat liked working alone. Doesthis show in the tale later?

3. Even if he is a bit of a loner, Nat is not selfish. He isvery altruistic. Explain this term. What does he do to show he isaltruistic?

4. Look at the last line of the fourth paragraph on page 52where Du Maurier uses a lot of alliteration. How? Why?

5. Does Nat appear hen-pecked? Look at page 53. How active ishis wife? How would you react to such a spouse?

6. Nat could be described as very brave or courageous in thetale. Give examples.

7. Nat is an analytical thinker. He can sit back and analyze aproblem. Look for evidence of this in his behavior.

8. Look at page 55 where Nat makes a cup of tea. What does thisscene reveal about this protagonist?

9. Nats meeting with the cowman is very revealing (pg. 56) Whyis Nat considered to be superior to others?

10. How does Mrs. Trigg react to Nats warning about birdattacks? (pp. 56-57)

11. Nat is very pragmatic in the course of the tale. Look atpage 59 for evidence.

12. The news on the wireless (59-60) suggests what to Nat?

13. Nat is very safety-conscious. Could this be because of hismilitary training? Look at page 61. He says Im not going to takeany chances. How? Why?

14. When Nat looks at the food stocks on pages 61-62 again he isvery pragmatic. How?

15. On page 62 Nat reveals his caring or protective nature.How?

16. Nat is altruistic when he phones the authorities and getsthe children home quickly (pg. 63). Comment.

17. Trigg the farmer (pg. 64) seems to represent all that iswrong with humans in regard to animals. How?

18. Why hasnt Trigg taken precautions at home with his windowslike Nat? (pg. 66)

19. Look at pages 67 & 68 for evidence for how Nat protectshis children from knowing the real truth about their predicament.How? Why?

20. One reason Du Maurier suggests for the bird attacks isrevenge for years and years of exploitation by man. Give examplesof how humans exploit animals.

21. The bottom line on page 73 shows Nats resilience andoptimism. How?

22. What mistake does Nat make on page 74 that nearly costs themdearly?

23. Why is the line second from the bottom of paragraph 9 onpage 78 the most important line in the whole story?

24. Nat reveals his shrewdness and intelligence when he listensto the radio and visits the Trigg farm. Pp. 78-79. How?

25. How do you react to the last page of the story? Is this thelast cigarette of a condemned man or will Nat and his familysurvive. What is it about Nat that suggests he will not simply giveup?

26. The east wind is referred to several times in the shortstory and is seen by many readers as an allegorical or metaphoricalreference to The Cold War. Which country could it refer to?Why?

You now have 26 comments on the short story. Lets get rid of thenumbers and turn your comments into an essay.

To make your essay a good read, you could link up all thesections that reveal Nat to be pragmatic. Do the same for hisaltruistic actions. Do it again for his intelligence, etc. Cut andpaste until it all flows.

The Birds

c Pearson Education Limited 2008 The Birds - Teachers notes of3

Teachers notes LEVEL 2 PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

About the author

Daphne du Maurier was a member of a notable Anglo-

French family. Her grandfather, George du Maurier, was

a novelist and artist. Her father, Sir Gerald du Maurier,

was a famous actor-manager. Born in London in 1907,

du Maurier was educated at home with her two sisters.

However, she hated the glamorous theatrical life of her

parents. When she was thirty-four, she wrote Gerald, a

biography of her father, in which she described her father

as an empty and superficial man although she clearly

loved him dearly.

From an early age, du Maurier was only truly happy when

she was reading by herself. She started writing in herteens,

but her career as a novelist didnt start until she visited

Cornwall, in the south-west of England, at the age of

twenty. Cornwall, with its wild seas and rocky coastline,

inspired du Maurier. She realised that she had found her

spiritual home and the natural outdoors life that she had

always wanted to live. From that point onwards, she felt

that she knew what kind of books she wanted to write.

Du Mauriers first novel was a romance called The Loving

Spirit. It was published when she was twenty-four. A

year later, in 1932, she married Sir Frederick Browning,

nicknamed Boy, a war hero and Olympic athlete. The

couples wedding was like a scene from one of du Mauriers

novels. They married in a small church on the Cornish

coast before loading a boat with stores and setting out on

the open seas on their honeymoon. They finally settled

down in Cornwall, where they had two daughters and a

son.

In 1936, at the age of twenty-nine, du Maurier used

Cornwalls wild weather and natural beauty for the setting

of her third novel, Jamaica Inn. The book was instantly

successful. By the time her next novel was published, a

romance called Rebecca (1938), du Maurier had won an

enormous readership for herself. The book told the story

of a young bride haunted by the memory of her husbands

first wife. In 1948, du Maurier had to face charges

of plagiarism in a New York court. She was accused

of stealing the story of Rebecca from another author.

However, the charge was unsuccessful it was agreed by

the court that the second wife plot was very common in

modern literature.

Over the next twenty years, du Maurier wrote historical

novels, short stories and stories of mystery and suspense.

Nearly all of her fourteen novels became bestsellers.

In 1952, she was made a fellow of the Royal Society

of Literature. After the death of her husband in 1965,

she hardly ever left Cornwall, almost living the life of a

recluse. In 1969, she was created a Dame of the British

Empire. She died in 1989.

Summary

The Birds is probably Daphne du Mauriers most famous

story. It became an instant classic, delivering a haunting

plot that built slowly and terrifyingly to an unforgettable

climax. The famous director Alfred Hitchco*ck turned du

Mauriers story into a classic film in 1963.

Pages 130

The story begins in December. Nat Hocken, a farm

worker, has noticed that crowds of birds are gathering

above the beach. Later the same night, the birds fly

through the open windows of his house and attack him

and his children. Nat fights them off, killing about fifty

of them. Listening to the radio the following morning, he

and his wife discover that thousands of birds are attacking

people all over the country. Nat boards up his windows

with wood. The birds attack again and succeed in breaking

into one of the bedrooms.

Pages 3139

In the morning, the tide goes out and the birds retreat.

The radio is silent. Nat hurries over to the farm where he

works. Everyone at the farm has been killed by the birds.

However, the birds dont attack Nat as he walks home

they are full. He and his wife sit down for lunch. They

have enough food and firewood to stay in the house for

three or four days. They start to believe that they aregoing

to be able to survive until the birds attack the house

again!

Daphne du Maurier

The Birds

c Pearson Education Limited 2008 The Birds - Teachers notes of3

Teachers notes LEVEL 2 PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

Background and themes

Storytelling: More than anything else, Daphne du

Maurier was a storyteller. She wrote page-turners stories

that were hard to put down. Many second-rate storytellers

14 Write: Write the following combinations of letters on

the board they are anagrams of words that can be

found on pages 21 to 30. Get students to spell the

words correctly. When they have finished, some of the

students should stand at the front of the class and

read the words to their classmates.

a raedb

b rafm

c dwin

d drak

e rief

f ngwsi

g ddae

h aes

After reading

15 Discuss: How are the birds in the story different from

birds in real life? Write this question on the board and

get students to discuss it in pairs. When they have

finished, some of the pairs should stand at the front

of the class and share their answers with their

classmates.

16 Pair work: Put students into pairs and get them to

look up the word brave in a dictionary. Students

should ask each other which character is the bravest in

The Birds. They should give reasonns for their choice.

When they have finished, some of the pairs should

stand at the front of the classroom and re-enact their

conversation for their classmates.

Pages 3139

Before reading

17 Write: Write the word imagine on the board and

teach students what it means. Then put them into

pairs and ask them to imagine that help comes for

Nat and his family. Get them to write a story to

describe how Nat and his family are saved. When

they have finished, the pairs should stand at the

front of the classroom and read their stories to their

classmates. Finally, take a vote to see which story is

the classs favorite.

After reading

18 Discuss: Get students to work in small groups and

discuss the following questions:

Did you think that Nat and his family would be saved

at the end of the story? Why or why not?

Were you surprised by the storys ending? Why or why

not?

Have you read any other stories that dont have a happy

ending? If so, which ones?

Do you like stories that dont have a happy ending?

Why or why not?

What do you think happens to Nat and his family in the

future? Do you think they will ever be saved? Why do you

think this?

Vocabulary activities

For the Word List and vocabulary activities, go to

www.penguinreaders.com.

Daphne du Maurier

The Birds (1952)

It has become almost impossible to talk about Daphne duMaurier's short story, The Birds, without talking about AlfredHitchco*ck's movie, The Birds, so I will discuss both works. Whilethe movie was based on Du Maurier's story, the plot line, location,characters, and general tone of the two tales are almost totallyunrelated to each other.

In his book, The Private World of Daphne du Maurier, MartynShallcross says that the genesis of the story came about whenDaphne was walking near a lake with her dog. Two hungry seagullsattacked the dog and then went after her. She was forced to runinto the trees to seek cover.

I have no doubt that the incident actually occurred. InBrownsville, Texas, I would often buy extra french fries at thelocal 'Jack in the Box' to feed to the gulls. They would swoop downand take them right from my hand without a hint of fear and theyoften weren't very mindful of my fingers. I was impressed enough bythe fearlessness of the birds to base an incident in my novel,Intercourse With the Dead, on it.

It is possible, however, that the creation process began evenearlier. In 1938 Carl Stephenson published his only short story,Leiningen Versus the Ants. It deals with a man on a plantationbattling droves of ravaging ants who will eat anything in theirpath and was made into the movie, The Naked Jungle which starredCharlton Heston. It is considered one of the best short storiesever written and the theme of it is the same as the theme of TheBirds: Is human intelligence and resourcefulness the mostindomitable force in the world? As we ponder the questions ofglobal warming, nuclear waste, and ebola it might seem a morepertinent question today then when it was originally posed.

I don't know if Du Maurier ever read Stephenson's story. It wasvery popular and was done as a radio play several times. It mayhave played a part in her story. Another factor that might beconsidered concerns Daphne's uncle, Guy du Maurier. In 1909 hewrote a popular play called, An Englishman's Home which dealt withunnamed invaders attacking an Englishman's house and the Englishmandefending his wife and family admirably. In The Birds we have onelone Englishman defending his home against invaders as well.

Daphne du Maurier's story is set in Cornwall, England, where shelived. Hitchco*ck would move the locale to Bodega Bay in California.While some sources say that she was not to happy about Hitchco*ck'sAmericanization of her story, others say that she liked theHitchco*ck film very much.

Daphne's story opens with a sudden rush of coldness that comeson December 3rd. She says that winter had arrived early andharshly. I don't really know when winter would normally start inCornwall, England, but in Omaha, Nebraska, where I currently live,it would not be unusual for it to be very cold at that time ofyear. Apparently it is unheard of for winter to come that early inCornwall and this deprived the birds of their normal supply offood. This is the explanation for their extremely aggressivebehavior.

The protagonist in Daphne's story is Nat Hocken, a married manwith children who has a disability pension and works part time on afarm. Daphne du Maurier never thought of herself as rich but shehad friends with names like 'Puckie', she called her servants,'Cook' and 'Nanny', rather than their given names, and she sent herchildren to boarding school. Her family included prominent writers,artists, and actors. She grew up surrounded by people like J.M.Barrie, the author of Peter Pan and Edgar Wallace, the popularmystery writer who also co-wrote King Kong. By all accounts she wasa spoiled little rich girl. In spite of this, her working classcharacters are written in a believable manner and Nat seems quiteauthentic.

Nat was a man quite familiar with his surroundings. He had asubstantial knowledge of birds and nature in general.

"Perhaps, thought Nat, munching his pastry by the cliff's edge,a message comes to the birds in autumn, like a warning. Winter iscoming. many of them perish. And like people, who, apprehensive ofdeath before their time, drive themselves to work or folly, thebirds do likewise."

The purpose and reasoning of Daphne's story can be found withinthis paragraph. It is noteworthy that Nat is at a cliff's edge. Heis at a place where the solid ground ceases to exist and only thesky separates him from the turbulent sea. Nat's world at the startof the story is simple, predictable, and rock solid. But it is onlyfew feet away from uncertainty and terror.

The mention of a warning is a nice piece of foreshadowing. Natwill soon receive a warning and he will not heed it. The phrase,'many of them perish', is also sort of a cryptic foreshadowing ofwhat is about to happen to the human beings in the area. Nature hadinexplicably abandoned its usual routine and winter had arrived tooearly, robbing the birds of their usual food. The reaction of thebirds to these bizarre events was to respond with bizarre andaggressive behavior. In the Hitchco*ck movie there was noexplanation offered for the change in the behavior of the birds andthe absence of rational explanations for what was occurring leftthe movie looking like it was not particularly well conceived.Daphne, on the other hand, gives us a logical explanation: thebirds are starving because winter has destroyed their foodsupply.

In Daphne's book, The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories, shesaid that there were five things that she considered important inher writing.

1. Atmosphere

2. Simplicity of Style

3. Keep to the Main Theme

4. Characters, Few and Well Defined

5. Build It Up Little by Little

This is a good list for all writers to use. Building it up,little by little, is particularly important in a story of horror orsuspense and in this story Daphne dislodges us from our safe,secure world with the skill of a pickpocket removing a wallet.

The first sign that something really unusual was happening camewhen Nat talked to a farmer who told him that there were many morebirds than usual this year and that they had grown much bolder thannormal. Some had flown so close to the farmer's head while he wasplowing that they'd almost knocked off his hat.

That night there came a tap at Nat's window and it isreminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's poem, The Raven.

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,Asof someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

And when does Poe's poem take place?

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,And eachseparate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

When Nat opened the window a bird flew in, scratched his hand,and flew back out again. It is almost as if the bird was bringingNat a warning of what was to come.

"The bird had drawn blood. Frightened, he supposed, andbewildered, the bird, seeking shelter, had stabbed him in thedarkness. Once more he settled himself to sleep."

The message that Daphne's bird was imparting was unclear to Nat,just as the message of Poe's raven was not readily perceptible, andit was ignored. Nat returned to his slumber. The cold weather hadcreated a crisis for the birds but human beings didn't care aboutit. It was not their problem. Nat saw what was happening to thebirds and had more concern about it than most but there reallywasn't much he could do about it so why bother with it. But, likeany crisis that is ignored, sooner or later it will spill over intoareas that were once considered safe and invulnerable.

There are many parallels in real life; the most notable beingthe US government's indifference to the feelings of the Islamicnations of the world. The attack on the USS Cole, like the birdthat flew into Nat's window and attacked him, was a harbinger ofthe horrors that were yet to come. It was a wound and it hurt butit wasn't anything to lose sleep over. The average American wentabout his daily tasks and didn't really think much, if at all,about his government's relationship with the Islamic world. Moslembeliefs were not Christian beliefs and so they were laughed at. But9/11 changed everything. Subjects that were rarely discussedsuddenly dominated the national agenda.

How much trouble could a few birds be? Did we really need toworry about a handful of Islamic fundamentalists? Each was thevisible tip of an unseen iceberg moving silently towards us withmost of its immense mass hidden from our view. Neither incident wasconsidered the vanguard of a movement that would overwhelm us.There are doubtlessly many other examples of ignored warnings butat the present time this is the one that seems to come most readilyto mind.

Nat's slumber did not last long. The tapping returned and thistime it was so loud that it woke Nat's wife. The birds at Nat'swindows could not be ignored anymore than the Raven at Poe'sdoor.

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt andflutter,In there stepped a stately raven, of the saintly days ofyore.Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped orstayed he;But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamberdoor.Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamberdoor,Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Pallas is another name for Athena, the goddess of wisdom.

There were a dozen birds at Nat's window now and when he openedit they did more than perch and sit. They flew at his head andtried to attack his eyes. Nat fought them off and they flew backout the window. The second warning had been given.

Cries were heard coming from the children's bedroom. When Natrushed in he found masses of small birds attacking his children(small birds for small people?). He pushed the kids out of theroom, grabbed a blanket to protect himself with, and battled thebirds until dawn finally drove them away.

The birds are in some ways nightmare creatures. They leave withdawn and they attack the eyes. It is not the normal habit of thebirds described in the story to fly by night, yet they seem torelish the darkness and abhor the day almost as if they werevampires.

Perhaps what Daphne is trying to tell us is that our eyes are asort of barrier. The world that exists in front of our eyes isrelatively logical and follows certain rules, but behind our eyesthere exists another world where our worst fears take wing andflutter about madly slamming into the walls of our mind. Madnesslives behind the eyes. Nightmares too. The world outside of us, theworld that other people can see has a certain order to it but theworld inside our heads that only we can see is sometimes incrediblychaotic. In this story Daphne snatches away that predictable worldand replaces it with a world where the fears we've hidden away roamfreely and know no restraint.

Like a ship unsure of its compass readings Nat sought out thelandmarks of the world that he felt secure in. Being a goodEnglishman he went to kitchen to make tea.

"The sight of the kitchen reassured him. The cups and saucers,neatly stacked upon the dresser, the tables and chairs, his wife'sroll of knitting on her basket chair, the children's toys in acoroner cupboard."

In the morning Nat made breakfast for his family, walked hisdaughter to her school bus, and then went to the farm where heworked even though it was his day off. The people at the farmhadn't had any problems with birds and they didn't take Nat's storyvery seriously.

He went back home and began to dispose of the dead bodies of thebirds that had attacked the children. He put the carcasses in asack and went to the beach. He meant to bury them there but DuMaurier adds another macabre touch to the story. The fierce windgets hold of the bag and the bodies of the birds take flight almostas if they'd come back to life. The event, being the combination ofhigh wind and aerodynamic corpses, is completely rational, butthere is a sense of the supernatural about it and it gives theimpression that even death cannot destroy the forces that have beensummoned against mankind. It was as if God wanted to destroymankind and the birds were the instruments he was using toaccomplish his task.

On the beach Nat saw tens of thousands of gulls upon the sea,"like a mighty fleet at anchor." This reference gives the definiteimpression that the birds are preparing for war. The fact that youcan see it coming and you know its going to get worse increases thesuspense in the story tremendously.

Nat's wife heard a broadcast on the wireless (the radio) statingthat the bird attacks had been happening all over England. Natbegan to board up the windows. His wife began to ask what thegovernment was going to do. The problem had been 'built up littleby little' according to Du Maurier's master plan. It began with asingle pesky bird, then a group of birds, then tens of thousandsmassing on the sea, and now it had become a national crisis.

The opponents in this story are clearly; man and nature.

"There had been no sun all day..."

"He could hear the vicious sea churning on the rocks."

In the early 1950's, when The Birds was written, one of the mostominous and frightening images in the movies and the media was thatof a huge expanding mushroom cloud rising from a nuclear explosion.The mushroom cloud was often compared to an evil genie beingreleased from its bottle. Many felt that it was the symbol of theend of all life on earth. Daphne incorporates this symbol into herstory. The gulls on the sea began to rise and circle, thousands ofthem. The swirling tower of birds is the natural world's equivalentof the mushroom cloud and it is quite clearly as much of a symbolof the end of the world as we know it as the mushroom cloud is.

Nat decided that it would be best to meet his daughter's schoolbus so that he could protect her in case of an attack. Wecontinually see the father in this story as the protector of thefamily and this is in accordance with the prevailing beliefs of thetime. The father was head of the household. The wife and childrendid not question his decisions or his authority. With the privilegeof authority came the responsibility for sacrificing his life, ifneed be, to save the lives of his wife and children. There arethose today who would question the strict adherence to these socialroles but for many generations they served to advance the humanrace and insure its survival. Whether or not these roles should beabandoned will always be open for debate and it is doubtful that adefinitive answer will be reached until some great crisis decidesthe matter for us.

On his way to meet the bus Nat sees another cloud, black thistime. This cloud was made up of crows and other dark colored birds.Again we have the doomsday image of the rising cloud. The clouddivided into four parts and each sub-group soared off to adifferent point of the compass like a squadron of German bombersoff to blitz England. It was not just Nat's little corner of theworld that been targeted for destruction; It was the entirehuman-filled world.

The many references to World War II and England being blitzed byGerman bombers were particularly stirring to the audience of 1952.Most of them had lived through the war and comparisons to the warhit home.

When Nat's daughter got off the bus she wanted to stay awhileand play with her friends in the lane but Nat told her they mustall hurry home. There were gulls circling overheard. When Nat sawthe farmer that he worked for driving down the road Nat asked himto give his daughter a ride home. The farmer took the problem withthe birds very lightly. He talked about getting guns and havinggreat fun shooting the birds out the sky. He asked Nat if he wanteda gun for himself. Nat saw the futility of this plan and he refusedthe offer.

The birds posed a serious threat to mankind's existence, but,except for Nat, no one seemed to take the problem very seriously.Mankind is arrogant and thinks of itself as invincible but is thatview based on facts or vanity? When we face the dangers of globalwarning, acid rain, and of using nuclear weapons or even nuclearenergy there are those who minimize these problems to the level oftrivialities and those who consider the problems dire emergencies.Only time will tell who is right but we do have a tendency not toadmit that there's a serious problem to be dealt with until wehoover on the brink of disaster.

This was illustrated in the story when Nat told the farmer thathe had better board up his windows. The farmer laughed, said thatthe media was making too much of it all, and that he'd be havingseagull for breakfast. The farmer had heard rumors that theRussians were poisoning the birds and that was the reason they'dall gone mad. At the time the story was written the Cold War wasvery much of a reality and many problems were automatically blamedon the Reds or commie-pinko sympathizers. This was the era ofSenator Joe McCathy's Committee on Un-American Activities and thehollywood witchhunt. This was the time period when John Waynerefused to star in the movie High Noon because real Americans wouldsupport their sheriff and only a commie would write a script wherepeople in a western town would all chicken-out.

As Nat rushed home he was attacked by more birds, more fiercelythis time. Du Maurier creates a real feeling of claustrophobia withthe family seeking shelter in their little home with the boardedwindows and tens of thousands of birds combing every possibleentrance to the refuge so that they might peck the flesh from thebodies of the humans.

We've been given the visual descriptions of the birds massing onthe sea, circling in the air, and attacking like a squadron ofkamikaze pilots but now, with the family trapped in their mostprivate place, we no longer can see the birds. We can only hearthem. We hear their bodies brushing against the boarded windows,their claws ripping at the wood, and their beaks pecking ateverything that separates Nat and his family from death.

Earlier we saw the birds going for Nat's eyes and we saw howkeen Nat was to protect his eyes. But, now that we can no longersee the birds, it is as if our eyes have been disabled. To hear thesound of the birds and to have to merely guess at what they'redoing and how much progress they've made at getting in isharrowing. Du Maurier has ratcheted the suspense up another notch.The noises that came from every entryway made Nat's existence seemlike that of a cornered mouse. Everything was closing in on him andwhen he heard the sound of cracking glass he began to feel it wasonly a matter of time before he lost his battle.

Nat huddled his family into the kitchen. He thought that wouldbe the safest place. They brought down mattresses from upstairs andlistened to the radio. The news on the radio merely said that thegovernment was attempting to solve the problem with the birds andthat there would be no further broadcasts until seven o'clock thenext morning.

After supper they heard the hum of airplanes but it was followedby the sound of an airplane crashing. It became necessary to keep afire going at all times. When Nat smelled burning feathers he knewthat they were coming down the chimney and into the stove. He builtthe fire hotter and incinerated them. When Du Maurier described thetea cups and dishes in Nat's kitchen earlier and talked about howthey made Nat feel secure, I thought that there would surely be ascene where the birds got into the kitchen and broke those thingsto illustrate the disruption that was going on in Nat's world, butthat does not happen. Nat's home is his fortress and no enemy shalltrespass upon it.

There was no broadcast at seven o'clock the next morning.Nothing is more frightening than not knowing what is going on andthe lack of news is chilling. Nat's family had placed their hopesin the government, but perhaps the government didn't even existanymore. The birds seemed to attack with the turning of the tidewhich was rather appropriate because the tide had certainly turnedfor the human race. Nat decided to use the lull inbetween attacksto gather supplies.

When they went to the farm Nat told his wife to wait with thekids while he went in. His wife protested that she wanted to talkto the farmer's wife but Nat remained firm. A modern American womanwould have probably gone in no matter what her husband said but inEngland in the 1950's a wife obeyed her husband. Nat was onlytrying to protect his wife and kids from the horrible scene that heknew he would find there.

The farmer had been pecked and clawed to death by the birds andthen trampled by the cows in their frenzy. The farmer's gun laidbeside him. Du Maurier does not belabor us with a long discourse onhow Nat had been right about guns being useless. Like the masterfulwriter she was, she lets the corpse and the weapon speak forthemselves.

A friend of mine who served as a marine in the Korean Conflicttalked sometimes of North Koreans attacking U.S. troops in mass.Many of them had only machetes as weapons. His unit began to gunthem down and it didn't stop them. They still kept coming. He saidthere was no way to stop people who weren't afraid to die. He saidhe was very lucky to come back alive. A lot guys didn't. So DuMaurier's theory about attacks made by large masses who do not feardeath is probably correct. Guns don't help much if the numbers arelarge enough.

A question that comes up at this point is; 'If the birds arekilling humans for food, why are the cows, who are an easy target,left alive?' I don't know of a logical answer for that.

We see another example of Du Maurier's craftsmanship when Natgoes to the second story of the farmhouse. He climbs the stepsuntil he sees the legs of the farmer's wife, who is lying dead onthe floor. There's no need to see more. We already know whathappened to her husband and, rather than supply the details of thebloody scene for us, Du Maurier is going to let us do thatourselves. This is really more effect because it forces us to paintour own picture of the horror.

Nat filled the car with everything he thought would be useful.He lied to his wife and kids by telling them that the farmer andhis wife weren't home. Again we have the good father protecting hisfamily in the traditional accepted English manner.

When Nat saw that there was no smoke coming from the houseswhere his daughters playmates lived he felt guilty about not takingthose children home with him. Nat's feelings of guilt aretremendous. His conscience troubles him continually. He saw thedanger when others laughed at it and, even though their deaths werecaused by their own arrogance and short-sightedness, he stillcarries the responsibility for their deaths around with him likesome great weight that he's been shackled with. Although the worldis filled with fools the burden for their stupidity still fallsupon the wise because we're all in this thing together. Forexample: There were those in Germany who opposed Hitler's rise topower but they did not escape blame for his actions.

Nat thought he saw the Navy coming to save them. But it wasn'tthe Navy. It was the gulls rising on the bay. There was nothing atall on the radio anymore. The story closes without resolution. Natwas the only one awake. It was night and the birds were pecking andclawing away, trying to get in. Nat, the good Englishman, the goodfather, the good husband, was doing what he had to do to protecthis family. The moral code that he believed in was what protectedhis family from the horrors on the other side of the door. Like themale blue jay who will sacrifice himself to the predator to protecthis nest, his mate, and her eggs, Nat was playing the role thatnature had designated for him and hopefully his species wouldsurvive.

Could a 'bird war' actually happen? According to Michael D.Winkle it did once. On his web page entitled, 'Behind "The Birds"',he tells of a "bird war" that took place in Corke, Ireland. Thereis a phamplet that tells all about it called, 'The Wonderful Battelof Starelings, Fought at the Citie of Corke, in Ireland, the 12 and14 of October, 1621'. To read more about it click here.

What is perhaps even more bizarre is that birds may sought totake revenge on Daphne's family for writing the story. In May of2001 Daphne du Maurier's son, Christian "Kits" Browning, and hiswife, Olive, were viciously attacked by seagulls near Daphne'sformer home in Cornwall, England. To find out more click here.

Ten years after Daphne wrote The Birds Rachel Carson's book,Silent Spring was serialized in The New Yorker magazine. SilentSpring was a work of fiction that told the story of pesticides suchas DDT working there way up the food chain. The insecticides killedthe insects but then the birds that ate the insects were affectedand the predators that ate the birds were affected and so on, andso on, until finally mankind felt the pain of its own fool-hardypractices.

There were serious problems with the overuse of insecticides atthe time. In 1957, after a mosquito-control program was started inDuxbury, Massachusetts, there was a huge demise in the localwildlife populations. In the South spraying to control the spreadof fire ants killed massive amounts of other creatures. Whencranberry plants were sprayed it caused so many problems that theDepartment of Agriculture banned the sale of cranberries in 1959.At about that time I was a youngster riding in the car with my auntand my grandmother through a place in South Omaha called SpringLake Park. A huge tank truck was plodding along very slowly infront of us and two men where holding the nozzles of two hoses thatextended from either side of the truck and spraying gigantic cloudsof chemicals to kill mosquitos. We had to keep our distance becausethe fog was so thick in the area behind the truck that we wouldn'thave been able to see the road. We coughed and choked when we gottoo near it. When my aunt finally passed the truck, she asked oneof the men what they were spraying.

"Oh, nothing to worry about, ma'am. Its only DDT."

That was how things were in those days.

There are certain parallels between Silent Spring and The Birdsand the two women who wrote these stories. Both lived in coastalcommunities where one of the main attributes of the area was anatural, relatively unscathed, environment: Daphne lived inCornwall, England and Rachel lived near West Southport on the coastof Maine in the United States. Both women had an affinity for birdsand preferred natural environments to the artificial environmentsof cities.

Daphne's story begins with a winter that was radically differentfrom other winters. Carson's book begins with a spring that isradically different from other springs. In Daphne's story the birdsbecome fierce, powerful, and dominant. In Rachel's story theybecome weak, moribund, and eventually die. Daphne describes thedeafening squall of thousands of birds on the attack and uses it tohighlight the terror of the events unfolding. Rachel uses thesilence created by the almost total absence of birds as centerpoint of her book and uses that silence to highlight theterror.

Both stories deal with man's relationship to nature and bothshow that, while man might think of himself as the world's master,he is actually just nature's vassal. They are different in that inSilent Spring man brings about his own destruction and in The Birdsnature just overpowers man. But the message of both stories is thatmankind should not feel too secure revelling in its arrogance.Nature can destroy mankind at the drop of a feather. The worldexisted for thousands of years before mankind came into being andit got along quite nicely without the human race. There is no doubtthat it could do so again. We are merely guests here and, if wetrash our room, the management will eject us.

And now on to Alfred Hitchco*ck's movie, The Birds, which, whilebased on Du Maurier's story, bares almost no resemblance to itother than for the fact that birds are attacking people. I saw thismovie when I was still in high school and I was impressed by thespecial effects but when it was over I asked the usher (they stillhad ushers in those days) how long intermission would be. Heinformed me that there was no intermission - the show was over.

"You're kidding!" I said.

"Sucks, doesn't it?" was his response. He went on to tell methat I was not the first one to ask about intermission and that thegeneral audience response was not favorable. Hitchco*ck's movie madea lot of money but it did not really please the public.

At the risk of incurring the anger of many movie fans, I have tostate that I feel Hitchco*ck was the most over-rated director thatever lived. I know many polls rank him at the very top but let'stake a moment to analyze to his methods.

There was a Hitchco*ck formula.

In most of his pictures he had the very top stars of the day.Who wouldn't go to see a movie that starred Paul Newman and JulieAndrews, Barbara Stanwick and Burt Lancaster, Cary Grant and GraceKelly, or James Stewart and Doris Day? If you want to know when astar was at the peak of their success, you ask, 'When did Hitchco*ckuse them in one of his pictures?' Such pairings produced guaranteedbox office.

For The Birds Hitchco*ck had wanted Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.They had been very good together in To Catch a Thief. Well, thatwas not to be. So he set about to find actors who came as close toGrant and Kelly as he could. We got Rod Taylor and TippiHedren.

Step two of the Hitchco*ck formula was to dress the leading lady'to the nines'. With a Hitchco*ck movie the ladies almost always gota free fashion show.

Step three involves shooting two or three scenes that are soawe- inspiring that everyone will be talking about them around thewater cooler on Monday morning. It might be Cary Grant being chasedby a crop duster, or the shower scene in Psycho, or the man fallingoff the Statue of Liberty in Saboteur, or, in this case, lots ofmatte shots of birds.

I remember watching Hitchco*ck's movie, Foreign Correspondent,with Joel McCrea and Laraine Day (who happened to be two of the topstars of the day). There were some atmospheric scenes in a windmilland a man falling from a tall building (which he did better inSaboteur). As the film ended I felt that for once Hitchco*ck hadn'tdelivered on his memorable scenes policy. But just as the plot hasconcluded and the protagonists are in an airplane and heading home,a missile is accidently fired at their plane. We see it rip throughthe cabin as the bewildered occupants are as surprised as theaudience. They tumble through air and land in the ocean and thereare exciting scenes where they clutch the wing of the shatteredaircraft in an effort to survive. So Hitchco*ck did deliver. Ofcourse the best scenes in the movie had absolutely nothing to dowith the story.

LOOK magazine prided itself on having vivid pictures that told astory without need of dialogue. Hitchco*ck should have worked forthem. Movies need plot and good dialogue. He was a greatcinematographer but a lousy story teller.

Hitchco*ck often said that the story was merely the loom on whichhe weaved his web and he often referred to his actors as cattle tobe herded by him. Such complete and utter disrespect for writersand actors lead to a situation where the real star and the onlystar of almost every Hitchco*ck film was Hitchco*ck. He rarely gavehis actors closeups and it made it very hard for a star to shine ina Hitchco*ck film. As to the writers, he had wanton disregard forplot lines. Hitchco*ck was an ego-maniac, more interested inadvancing his own legend than in filming a coherent and interestingstory.

Hitchco*ck directed 53 feature-length films. He was nominated forthe Academy Award for best director five times (Rebecca, Lifeboat,Spellbound, Rear Window, and Psycho), but he never won. Hitchco*ckdid not like to share glory. He was the only star of the productionand the only actor or actress to ever win an Academy Award for BestPerformance in one of his films was Joan Fontaine in Suspicion.Writers did not fare much better. A few were nominated for writingawards;Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison for Foreign Correspondent,Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison for Rebecca, Gordon McDonellfor Shadow of a Doubt, John Steinbeck for Lifeboat, Ben Hecht forNotorious, John Michael Hayes for Rear Window, and Ernest Lehmanfor North by Northwest. None of them won.

Hitchco*ck's attitude towards writers was that they werenecessary to meld his collections of trick photography shots into amovie but that what they did was not particularly important and heoften deleted their scenes, re-wrote their dialogue, and changedtheir plot lines. His first choice to write The Birds was RichardMatheson. It would have been an excellent choice. In my opinionMatheson is the best screenwriter that ever lived. He isresponsible for such movies as The Incredible Shrinking Man, RogerCorman's Edgar Allan Poe movies, The House of Usher, The Pit andthe Pendulum, Tales of Terror, and The Raven, The Comedy ofTerrors, The Morning After, the highly successful TV movies, Duel,The Night Stalker (Which spawned the TV Series), and Trilogy ofTerror, as well as writing many of the best episodes of TheTwilight Zone. If ever there was a man with the credentials towrite a great horror movie, it was Matheson.

But in his article,'He Is Legend: Richard Matheson', PaulRiordan quotes Matheson as saying that Hitchco*ck approached himabout doing the screen play for The Birds but, when Mathesonsuggested that the birds should not actually be shown very much inthe film, any chance of him getting to write the screen play cameto a sudden end. Hitchco*ck was far more concerned about gettingcredit for shooting fantastic footage of marauding birds than hewas about telling a suspenseful story.

He had also considered James Kennaway, who written Tunes ofGlory, but according to Patrick McGilligan's book, AlfredHitchco*ck; A Life in Darkness and Light, Kennaway told him that tomake the movie as frightening as possible,

"You should never see a bird."

Needless to say, that ended any chance that Kennaway might havehad to write the script. Wendell Mayes and Ray Bradbury were alsoconsidered but both had other commitments.

The movie that Hitchco*ck had done right before The Birds wasPsycho. Psycho was a milestone in Hitchco*ck's career. For years hehad been using big name stars, the very best color photography, andexotic locales to make suspense films and in the 1950's an upstartnamed, William Castle, began to make horror movies with lesserknown stars, in black and white, shot cheaply on simple sets andCastle's movies like, Mr. Sardonicus, Macabre, The Tingler andparticularly, House on Haunted Hill often did far better at the boxoffice than Hitchco*ck's expensive productions. Castle was themaster of gimmicks. For Macabre he offered a $1000 life insurancepolicy to anyone to died of fright while watching the film. In Mr.Sardonicus he allowed the audience to vote on how the story shouldend. For The Tingler he had chairs in the theater wired to give thepatrons electrical shocks. In House on Haunted Hill a plasticskeleton was lowered from the roof of the theater into theaudience. Castle's autobiography was entitled, Step Right Up, I'mGoing to Scare the Pants Off America and that's a pretty gooddescription of what he did.

Obviously the so-called 'Master of Suspense' could not lethimself be upstaged by Castle. He shot Psycho in black and whiteand employed a gimmick of his own - No one would be seated afterthe first 15 minutes of the movie. This was pretty lame compared towhat Castle had done. In those days it was not uncommon to enter amovie theater in the middle of the story and stay until the partwhere you came in at rolled by again.

The shower scene in Psycho has become one of the most talkedabout scenes in motion picture history. There are 90 some pieces offilm spliced together to show Janet Leigh's demise. Hitchco*ck oftenproudly proclaimed that at no point was the knife ever shownentering the body. Hitchco*ck always played to the prudes. He gavethem horror without blood and love without sex. This pleased thegoody-two-shoes element in American society but produced lifeless,colorless, characters in situations without much real impact orreality. Where Hitchco*ck took the high road, Castle took the lowroad and produced far more enjoyable films. Castle preferredpleasing audiences to pleasing critics. As soon as Psycho came outCastle quickly produced Homicidal, a bargain basem*nt version ofHitchco*ck's so-called 'masterpiece'. Where Hitchco*ck took himselfvery seriously, Castle was more than willing to laugh athimself.

Someone once said that the best Hitchco*ck movie ever made wasCharade but the pity of it is that Hitchco*ck didn't make it.Stanley Donen directed it and it really did seem to be the moviethat Hitchco*ck was always striving to make and never quiteattaining. Donen was best known for directing musicals like SingingIn the Rain and On the Town, both of which he co-directed with GeneKelly, as well as Funny Face, Pajama Game, and others. In CharadeCary Grant and Audrey Hepburn actually did look like they were inlove with each other. A pleasant contrast from the cold formal loverelationships in Hitchco*ck movies. The suspense scenes were trulysuspenseful because these were real people and we cared about whathappened to them, unlike the cardboard cut-out characters thatseemed to populate Hitchco*ck's movies who always seemed more likemarionettes being moved around by some puppet master.

While there are those who compliment Hitchco*ck for his lovescenes, I am not one of them. When the movie, Love Story was shotthe producers on viewing the first cutting decided that they had astory, but they didn't have 'love'. So the principles were calledback to shoot scenes where they made 'snow angels' and did otherfrivolous and playful things that people in love do. In Hitchco*ck'smovie's we generally have a very formal type of love with noplayfulness or sexiness. According to Patrick McGilligan's book,Alfred Hitchco*ck; A Life in Darkness and Light, Hitchco*ck declaredhimself to be celibate and sometimes stated that the only time hehad ever made love was at the conception of his daughter. While itseemed that he wanted to make love to some of his female stars, hisweight and appearance were an obstacle and his approach was crude.Hitchco*ck didn't know how to flirt.

For some years after Psycho Hitchco*ck did not make anothermovie. This was because he felt the audience would expect him totop Psycho and he wasn't really sure that he could. He keptpondering Du Maurier's short story during this time. He had ownedthe film rights for years and he had achieved great success withtwo other Du Maurier works, Jamaica Inn and Rebecca, which was theonly Hitchco*ck movie ever to win an Academy Award for 'BestPicture'.

Du Maurier's story had been reprinted in 1959 in an anthologycollection that Hitchco*ck produced entitled, My Favorites inSuspense. He had originally purchased the film rights with the ideaof using it on his Alfred Hitchco*ck Presents TV show. Another eventthat played a part in Hitchco*ck deciding to make The Birds tookplace on August 18, 1961, when the Santa Cruz Sentinel printed aheadline reading,

Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes;Thousands of BirdsFloundering in Streets

Reporter Wally Trabing stated that at 3 A.M, a large flock ofsooty shearwaters had become confused by the fog and, beingattracted by the lights along the California coast, begin to flyinto houses, killing themselves.

"Startled by the invasion, residents rushed out on their lawnswith flashlights, then rushed back inside, as the birds flew towardtheir lights."

To read the entire article click here. When Hitchco*ck read thisstory it put the idea of making a movie out of Du Maurier's storyback on the front burner.

Hitchco*ck eventually chose Evan Hunter to write the screenplay.Hunter had written a short story called, Vicious Circle, that wasdone on the Alfred Hitchco*ck Presents TV show. He later went on towrite Blackboard Jungle and, under the name Ed McBain, he wrote thevery popular 87th Precinct crime stories. In Hunter's book, Hitchand Me he says that Hitchco*ck did not like the idea of making afarmer the main protagonist of the story. Hunter says he toldhim,

"So forget the story entirely. The only elements we'll be usingfrom it are the title and the notion of birds attacking humanbeings."

So any attempt to correlate Du Maurier's story with Hitchco*ck'smovie is pretty much futile.

The setting was changed from Cornwall, England to Bodega Bay,near San Francisco, California. The male lead would be a lawyerworking in San Francisco but living in Bodega Bay. The female leadwould be a spoiled society girl. Hitchco*ck seemed to have a disdainfor ordinary working stiffs.

During their early working sessions Hunter fielded some verygood ideas. He thought perhaps a murder mystery could beintertwined. Hitchco*ck didn't like it. He thought perhaps a newschool teacher could come to town when the birds began to attackand that the townspeople might blame the attacks on her arrival.Hitchco*ck didn't want a teacher for his lead character. Then Huntercame up with a terrible idea. He suggested starting the movie as ascrewball comedy and then bringing in the horror aspect. Hitchco*ckliked the idea. Hitchco*ck's only attempts at comedy were Mr. andMrs. Smith and The Trouble With Harry, neither of which wasparticularly hilarious. The snappy patter at the beginning of TheBirds that takes place when Rod Taylor meets Tippi Hedren at a petshop and she poses as a clerk is supposed to pass for comedy. Ihave yet to meet anyone who talks about the humor in The Birds.

Hunter is not entirely to blame for the script that became themovie. Hitchco*ck made many changes, added dialogue, deleted scenes,and even added ideas that some of his friends such as JessicaTandy's husband, Hume Cronyn, and author, V.F. Prichett, gave him.The end result was a mish-mosh of a story, containing unrealisticcharacters, having no central theme, and not travelling in anyparticular direction. The search for hidden meanings in the storybecomes chaotic because everyone who added or subtracted somethingfrom Hunter's script seemed to have a different idea concerningwhat those hidden meanings were to be. The tragedy is that thiscould have, and should have, been a masterpiece of a film but toomany hands pulled it in too many different directions.

One notes immediately that in the opening credits Hitchco*ck'sname is larger than the movie's title and three times larger thanthe names of the actors. Evan Hunter is the only name listed asscreen writer although, as I've stated, many cooks spoiled thisbroth.

The female protagonist is Melanie Daniels. The name Melanie camefrom the fact that Tippi Hedren, who played part, had a daughternamed Melanie. The daughter grew up to become the actress MelanieGriffith. Tippi, by the way, is a Swedish nickname meaning 'littlegirl'.

Originally Hitchco*ck had wanted Grace Kelly and Cary Grant forthis film and it looked for awhile as though Her Serene Highness,Princess Grace of Monaco, might actually do it and that she mightstar in Hitchco*ck's movie, Marnie, as well. Unfortunately,Hitchco*ck announced it to the public and this created problems.Marnie had a rape scene in it and it would not do for the princessof an arabic country to star in a movie where she was raped. AlsoGrace was still technically under contract to MGM and they were notabout to let her come out of retirement to star in a movie made byanother studio. The people of Monaco were outraged by the wholething and Grace Kelly regrettably announced that she would not beavailable for either film.

Hitchco*ck was forced to find a replacement and he wanted a GraceKelly-look-alike. He considered Pamela Tiffin, Yvette Mimieux,Carol Lynley, and Sandra Dee but found none of them to besatisfactory. One day, while watching the Today show he saw acommercial for the diet drink SEGO that featured Tippi Hedren,where a young boy whistled at her. He liked the way she walked andcarried herself and decided that she would be the star of TheBirds.

Cary Grant was busy doing a movie with Doris Day. Hitchco*ckfirst considered Sean Connery as a replacement but Sean was busydoing the early James Bond movies. He settled on Rod Taylor to playMitch, the male lead.

The movie opens with some establishing shots of trolley cars andother items that show the city to be San Francisco and we seeMelanie Daniels walking past a boy scout who whistles at her,almost an exact copy of Tippi's SEGO commercial. So its officialfrom the get-go that she's a dish. She pauses briefly to look at alarge number of gulls in the air.

Hitchco*ck makes a cameo appearance coming out of a pet storewith two poodles on a leash. He liked to do his cameos early in thepicture because otherwise the audience was distracted by searchingthe crowd shots trying to find him.

Melanie goes into Davidson's Pet Shop and remarks to the clerkthat she's never seen so many gulls. The clerk says that there mustbe a storm at sea because that drives them inland. This is ourfirst bit of foreshadowing and it isn't too bad. While the clerk ischecking on a myna bird that Melanie has ordered, Mitch (RodTaylor) comes in. He acts as if he thinks Melanie is a clerk,although he has seen her pictures in the paper and knows quite wellshe isn't. She pretends to be a clerk and tries to help him findsome lovebirds for his sister's birthday.

We've only just began and already there's a problem. Mitch, whois at least in his mid-thirties says that his sister is going to beeleven. This seems more bizarre than birds attacking people.

Melanie plays with a pencil (a subconscious phallic symbol?)while she talks to Mitch. Hitchco*ck added this touch.

When Mitch asks Melanie if she feels guilty about keeping thebirds in cages, she replies,

"Well, we can't just let them fly around the shop, youknow."

In Hitchco*ck's eyes this is screwball comedy but it isn't veryhumorous and we don't even feel that there's all that much sexualattraction going on.

When Mitch asks to see a canary Melanie attempts take one out ofits cage but it bites her finger and it begins to fly around theshop - just exactly what she said they could not be allowed to do.So it looks as though a thematic ground work is being laid down.Mitch catches the bird with his hat and as he returns it to itscage, he says,

"Back in your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels."

Hitchco*ck takes credit for writing this line himself. The factthat carnies are yellow and that Melanie is a blonde foreshadowsthat Mitch is going to clip this little socialite playgirl's wings.Melanie is surprised that he knows who she is. Mitch reveals thathe is a lawyer and that he once sued her over a practical joke thatshe pulled.

"I just thought you might like to know what its like to be onthe other end of a gag."

All of this sounds like its setting the symbolic framework forthe story but so many people had a hand in the writing of thescript that it somehow gets lost and really leads nowhere. Thereare those who suggest that Hitchco*ck had a sort love/hate emotionalrelationship with icy aloof blondes and that there may be somethingin that. Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, Tippi Hedren,Janet Leigh, and Doris Day were all blonde and, while some of themwere actually warm and emotional in their other pictures, inHitchco*ck's movies they all had invisible barbed wire warped aroundthem. In the very first few minutes of the movie we've alreadyestablished that Melanie looks so good that she can get anythingshe wants with just a smile. But now that Hitchco*ck has put her upon a pedestal he fells compelled to knock her off. It is quitelikely that he always lusted after that type of woman and wasrejected. Hitchco*ck was a man very concerned with status and thatis what that type of woman represents, sort of a living statue ofAphrodite, something other men would envy but not really a fullyfunctioning woman with actual emotions. That's just the guess of anarmchair psychiatrist and I could easily be wrong but his personalrelationships with some of his stars, particularly Tippi Hedren,suggest that it was probably the case.

Melanie decides to have the last laugh. She buys some lovebirdsand takes them to Mitch's apartment but he's gone to Bodega Bay forthe weekend. Melanie goes to Bodega Bay (68 miles away). This seemslike its taking a gag a little farther than to be expected,particularly since buying lovebirds isn't exactly on a pare withwhoopi cushions and dribble glasses. She wears an expensive furcoat on this journey although the weather does not seem to be verycold. To me its just Hitchco*ck's way of hammering home the ideathat this is a spoiled little rich girl but others have suggestedit shows man's dominance over nature. If it does, I think it wasunintentional.

Melanie stops in Bodega Bay to find out where Mitch lives. Astorekeeper gives her directions to where "Lydia and the two kids"live. Lydia is Mitch's mother. Jessica Tandy plays the part. Thereference to Mitch as a 'kid' seems rather bizarre because it onceagain draws attention to the fact that he seems to be at least 20years older than his sister.

Melanie visits Annie Hayworth, the school teacher (Hunter wassuccessful in getting a school teacher included in the story, butonly in a supporting role), to find out the name of Mitch's sister.Suzanne Pleshette plays Annie and she's far and away the bestperformer in the movie. The exchange between Melanie and Annie ispleasant on the surface but Suzanne gives it a nice undertone inwhich, without really saying it, she lets it be known that she onceloved Mitch and is not exactly thrilled to see someone elsepursuing him. When Melanie tells her that the birds in her car arelovebirds, Annie responds with,

"I see. Good luck, Miss Daniels."

The name of Mitch's sister is Cathy.

Melanie rents a boat to cross the bay to Mitch's place. Shesneaks into the house and leaves the lovebirds and a card. WhenMitch sees the lovebirds he knows that only Melanie could have leftthem and he runs outside to see her leaving in her boat. Mitch hopsin his car and takes the long way around the bay to meet her at thedock in Bodega Bay. But before Melanie can reach the dock a seagullswoops down and claws her forehead. Just before the bird hits herwe see Melanie staring back at Mitch with a most definite smirk onher face. So at about 19 minutes into the movie we have our firstbird attack and the smirk has been wiped off of her face. Theinvulnerable Miss Daniels has received a nick. The attack issomewhat similar to the first attack on Nat in Du Maurier's story,in that it is minor but it draws blood, sort of like a glove-slapto the face of an opponent.

Mitch escorts her to 'The Tides' restaurant. To find out moreabout the actual restaurant click here. Mitch applies peroxide toher wound. There are those who say that this 'Hitchco*ck blonde'seemed to draw strength from the peroxide, but I think that'sover-doing it a bit. Melanie tells Mitch that she was coming up toBodega Bay anyway to see an old friend, Annie Hayworth. Mitchdoesn't really buy it. Lydia, Mitch's mother, comes in. Mitchexplains that Melanie has brought lovebirds for Cathy's birthday.Lydia responds with,

"Oh, I see."

This the same response Annie gave. Everyone seems to see Melaniemaking a play for Mitch except Melanie and Mitch. Mitch invites herto dinner.

Conveniently, Annie Hayworth has a sign in her window reading,'Room for Rent'. A little too pat. When Melanie visits her and asksto stay the weekend Annie asks,

"Something unexpected come up?"

A little tease for the audience. She then casts her eyes to thesky where there are huge flocks of gulls.

"Don't they ever stop migrating?"

Perhaps we have a veiled reference here to fact that Melanie hasleft the city to seek what she wants in Bodega Bay, that ratherthan seeking a man in her own social circle she has come here topoach upon Lydia's devoted son and Annie's ex-lover.

When Melanie arrives for dinner Lydia is concerned that herchickens aren't eating. Lydia phones the feed store and learns thata neighbor, Dan Fawcett, has the same problem but with a differentbrand of feed. Lydia's disapprovable of Melanie is very apparent inthe scenes that follow. It is probably just coincidence that thetalk about the chickens not eating come at the same time Melaniedrops in for dinner.

When Melanie returns to Annie's place to spend the night the twogirls have a heart-to-heart chat about Lydia's possessiveness ofher son. Annie once had eyes for Mitch and she moved from SanFrancisco just to be near him; a little extreme, but not entirelyunheard of. There is what appears to be a knock at the door. Annieopens it to find a gull has flown into her door and killed itself.Annie remarks,

"Poor thing, probably lost his way in the dark."

At about 40 minutes into the movie we have our second birdattack. The long first act here is effective in some ways. Itbuilds up the audience's anticipation for the real bird warfarethat is yet to come. Annie's remark about the bird losing its wayin the dark may be symbolic of the way that Melanie Daniels losther way in the earlier part of her life.

The next day Melanie attends Cathy's birthday party. There is ascene where Mitch and Melanie are standing on some sand dunessomewhat away from where the party activities are taking place.Mitch has brought a pitcher of martinis with him and they aredrinking and Melanie goes into an almost incoherent dialogue abouther mother abandoning her as a child that has absolutely nothing todo with anything that has taken place up to that point. Later, inthe closing shot, Lydia will hold Melanie close to her and therewill be the inference that Melanie has found the mother that shewas seeking. According to Hunter's book, Hitch and Me. Rod Taylorapproached him before the scene was shot and asked him if he'dwritten this ridiculous scene. Hunter did not write it. He went toHitchco*ck and told him how awful the scene was but Hitchco*ckinsisted that it stay in. Hitchco*ck had written it himself.

The children at the party are attacked by birds as they play'blindman's bluff' and Annie notes that this is the third timebirds have acted very strangely. The fact that Cathy is blind-folded when the birds attacked could have been used to make a veryfrightening scene but the sight of young children being attacked bybirds actually comes off looking silly. This is one of the worstscenes in the movie. It would have been more suited to the oldBatman TV show than a Hitchco*ck thriller.

The scene that follows is far more effect. Melanie agrees tostay for dinner at Mitch's. As they sit comfortably in the livingroom Melanie notices that a sparrow has flown down the chimney.Almost immediately a huge flock of sparrows bursts down the chimneyand begins to attack the humans.

While so much is written about Hitchco*ck, Tippi Hedren, and EvanHunter, very little is said about Ray Berwick, who might be moreresponsible for the appeal that this film has than any of theothers. Berwick was the bird handler on the movie, The Birdman ofAlcatraz and Hitchco*ck hired him to deal with the birds in thismovie. While the work of the others has been both praised andcriticized, there can be nothing but the utmost admiration for thework of Ray Berwick. The set on this shot was enclosed in plasticto keep the birds from escaping and, after hundreds of sparrowswere released down the chimney, handlers with air hoses blasted thebirds every time they tried to perch. This kept them continually inmotion while Hedren and Taylor fended them off. Anchovies wererubbed on the actors to get the birds to attack them. Later, evenmore birds were matted into the shot.

Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney's first employee and a pioneer in thefield of special effects helped to produce the great painted matteshots. He had developed a sodium matting technique that was capableof combining live action footage with background sets and paintingsin such a way that it all melded seamlessly. My first introductionto this type of thing came when I visited a science museum atBalboa Park in San Diego. There was table there that had whatappeared to be a mirror in the middle. When people sat on oppositesides of the table they saw their reflection in the mirror in themiddle but by turning a knob the concentration of sodium in theplates of the mirror was changed and the face of the person on oneside of the table magically begin to change into the face of theperson on the other side. I was so impressed by this I incorporatedit into my story, Intercourse With the Dead.

A bond has been growing between Melanie and Cathy and Melanieprotects Cathy while Lydia is left alone to fend for herself by thefireplace. Mitch attempts to chase the birds out the french doorswithout much success. There is a stark contrast between this sceneand the earlier scene where Mitch easily caught the canary with hishat and put it back in it's cage. All of this fits fairly well withthe developing story of Melanie's relationship with Mitch. WhileMitch could easily put Melanie 'back into her gilded cage' at theoutset, now she cannot be easily ignored, and she seems to havetaken Lydia's place as the woman in Mitch's life and even asCathy's mother, while Lydia is alone and abandoned.

Eventually Melanie herds Cathy and Lydia into another room andcloses the door. A group of people sitting and talking quietly whoare suddenly and without reason overwhelmed by attacking birdsworks quite well. This is what we've been waiting for.

After the bird attack is over the sheriff arrives on the sceneand attempts to come up with logical reasons for the bizarrebehavior of the birds. Lydia picks up broken pieces of her teaservice and Melanie decides to stay for the night.

The next day Lydia goes to see her neighbor, Dan Fawcett, tocompare the problems they've both been facing in regard to thechickens not eating. There is an establishing shot of Lydia drivingher truck down the country road that leads to the farm. There is nonoticeable movement of dust on the road at this time. Lydia stopsto talk to the farmer's hired hand, George, who says he hasn't seenDan this morning. The only homage paid to poor old Nat Hocken inHitchco*ck's movie is this one scene where George stands in for him.When Lydia enters the house she sees broken tea cups in the kitchenand the similarity to the broken china service she was picking upthe night before is all too clear. As she enters the bedroom shesees the bodies of dead birds. Then we have a shot of Dan Fawcett'sclawed and bloody legs that is very similar to the scene in DuMaurier's story where Nat sees the legs of the farmer's wife. Butnext we go to a mid-shot of Dan's upper torso with only bloodyholes where the eyes should have been. It seems odd that Hitchco*ckbragged so often the fact that you never see the knife enter JanetLeigh's body in Psycho and yet uses such a graphic scene here.Lydia rushes out of the house, pauses as she passes George, unableto even speak, and then jumps in her truck which now leaves hugeclouds of dust on the road which was almost dust-free when shearrived five minutes ago. I suspect that Hitchco*ck probably hadsomething dragged behind the truck or put in her gas tank in orderto get the road to emote.

Lydia is so distraught that she has to be confined to bed forawhile. Mitch receives a call from the police to come over to thefarmer's house and as he leaves he kisses Melanie. This is thefirst scene where the two of them don't bicker. Melanie takes teato Lydia. Apparently the Brenner's had an extra set of china incase of bird attack. Now its Melanie and Lydia's turn to have aheart-to-heart chat. Lydia seesaws between talking about her fearof being abandoned and her concern that Cathy will have to walkhome from school alone with rampaging sparrows on the loose.Melanie agrees to go get Cathy.

The built-up to the next scene is probably the best thatHitchco*ck ever did. Melanie waits outside the school while thechildren sing a song. The Potter School which was used for thisscene still stands in Bodega Bay, although it is now a privateresidence. To find out more about it click here. One of thequestions that continually pops up about this movie is, 'What songwere they singing?'. It is called, Risseldy, Rosseldy and it iseither an Irish-American or Irish folksong that was sung whilechurning butter with a wooden handle called a dasher. Varioussources list various lyrics and various spellings of thenonsense-words that appear in the song, but as near as I candetermine it goes like this -

Risseldy, Rosseldy

I married my wifeIn the month of June,Risseldy, rosseldy,Mow,mow, mow,I carried her offIn a silver spoon,Risseldy, Rosseldy,Heybambassity,Nickety, nackety,Retrical quality,Willowby,wallowby,Mow, mow, mow.

She combed her hairBut once a year,Risseldy, rosseldy,Mow, mow,mow,With every strokeShe shed a tear,Risseldy, Rosseldy,Heybambassity,Nickety, nackety,Retrical quality,Willowby,wallowby,Mow, mow, mow.

She swept the floorBut once a year,Risseldy, rosseldy,Mow, mow,mow,She swore her broomWas much to dear,Risseldy, Rosseldy,Heybambassity,Nickety, nackety,Retrical quality,Willowby,wallowby,Mow, mow, mow.

She churned her butterIn Dad's old boot,Risseldy, rosseldy,Mow,mow, mow,And for a dasherUsed her foot,Risseldy, Rosseldy,Heybambassity,Nickety, nackety,Retrical quality,Willowby,wallowby,Mow, mow, mow.

The butter came outA grizzly gray,Risseldy, rosseldy,Mow, mow,mow,The cheese took legsAnd ran away,Risseldy, Rosseldy,Heybambassity,Nickety, nackety,Retrical quality,Willowby,wallowby,Mow, mow, mow.

Hunter had the children sing another chorus so that it wouldlast long enough to cover the entire scene. It should be noted thatthis is the only music in the movie. There is no background musicwhat- so-ever.

As Melanie sits smoking in front of the playground a crow landson the jungle gym. She continues to smoke. Now there are five crowson the jungle gym. The camera switches from Melanie to the junglegym repeatedly and each time there are more crows. When Melaniefinally looks behind her the entire playground is covered withhundreds of crows. She enters the school just as Annie is tellingthe children that they can now out to the playground. Melanie stopsher and shows her the legions of birds sitting out there waitingfor the children.

Annie tells the children that they are going to have a firedrill and that they must walk very quietly until she tells them torun. The explicit instructions she gives seem to be fore-shadowingfor a really frightening scene that will start slowly and thenburst into terror but instead we cut to a scene with the childrenrunning wildly down a hill and matted in birds all over the place.Once again a scene that has children being attacked by birds justdoesn't work very well. The lead-in is better than the actualevent.

Melanie herds Cathy and one of her friends into a parked car andthey sit out the bird attack. Melanie parks the kids at Annie's andthen goes to the local diner to call her father, who happens to bea newspaper editor.

The diner scene probably has more stilted dialogue than anyother in movie history. We have one of the most convenient casts ofcharacters ever assembled.

There just happens to be noted ornithologist there who startsspouting every know fact concerning birds that there is. Just asthe expert is telling Melanie that it is mankind that treats birdsbadly we hear the waitress yelling at the cook that she has anorder for three fried chickens.

There is a drunk who quotes the bible and claims that the worldis coming to an end. Some speculate the Hitchco*ck is paying homageto the playwright, Sean O'Casey, here. O'Casey was an oldacquaintance and the two had ups and downs over the years.

There is a sea captain who talks of one his skippers beingattacked by gulls.

Then a businessman comes in and says, for no apparent reason,that birds should be wiped from the face of the earth.

We also have a woman with two children who are frightened by thetalk. The performances of all children in this movie are absolutelyawful and these two are no exception.

Mitch arrives with the sheriff, who is still not convinced thatthe birds are really attacking people.

Hitchco*ck defined his idea of suspense many times. He said thathe wanted to make the audience sweat. He described a scene wherethere was a bomb placed under a table about to go off. But, whilethe audience knows its there, the people at the table sit aroundtalking about baseball completely oblivious to the horrible fatethat awaits them. The most striking example of his theory inpractice is the scene that follows next in The Birds.

An attendant outside of the restaurant is filling a car with gaswhen birds attack him. He drops the hose causing gas to flood theparking lot. Not far away is a man about to light a cigar. Thepeople in the restaurant watch through a glass window and they cansee that a major explosion is about to occur but, even though theyopen the window and yell to warn the man, there is nothing that canprevent what is about to happen. The man drops the match andeverything goes up in flames and begins to explode. There areseveral freeze-frame shots of Melanie looking aghast in differentdirections as explosions take place that are incredibly effective.The 'bird wars' are about have a 'Battle of the Bulge'.

We switch to a panorama shot from above and see seagullsswarming down like a squadron of dive bombers. For some reason thepeople in the restaurant, including Melanie, feel compelled toleave the safety of the building and run outside to where the birdsare attacking.

Melanie seeks refuge in a phone booth and birds begin to crashinto it smashing the glass. This is a complete role-reversal of thepet shop scene where the bird was caged and Melanie said that theycouldn't be allowed to just fly about. Now Melanie is caged in thephone booth and the birds are just flying about and doing what theywant to. A badly clawed man tries to enter the phone booth to reachsafety but Melanie knows that letting him in would mean that thebirds would get her and she holds the door shut. While Melanie isoutwardly polite and friendly, there's still a wall between her andthe rest of the world and she loves herself far too much to takerisks for other people. The wall is staying where it is for now, nomatter how horrible, self-centered and inhumane it might appear tobe. She distances herself from the world out of fear and self-preservation.

The fire department arrives and starts to spray water on agasoline fire. Obviously their training was somewhat inadequate. Awagon pulled by horses runs by frantically. Perhaps there is anAmish community nearby. Hitchco*ck pulls out all the stops to createan exciting scene. Finally, Mitch rescues her and hurries her intothe diner.

Inside the diner the people are all huddled in fear in a backhallway. The lady with the children blames Melanie for the birdattacks because it all started when Melanie came to Bodega Bay.This harkens back to an idea Evan Hunter had originally when hewanted a new school teacher to come to town and for the townspeopleto blame the attacks on her. And Melanie did bring the lovebirds toBodega Bay. Maybe the other birds resented that. Melanie slaps thewoman who derides her and after the attack is over she walks withMitch to Annie's house. It makes one wonder where Mitch's car isbecause it would have offered some protection. Annie is lying deadon the steps of her house. Mitch and Melanie leave with Cathy inMelanie's car.

Rather than leave town or go to the sheriff's office, Mitch andMelanie go home and start boarding up the windows. Two of Hunter'sbest touches were eliminated by Hitchco*ck. As the family listenedto the radio for news of the attacks Hunter planned to showPresident Kennedy giving a speech that contained a line aboutAmerica's role as

"the great defender of freedom in its hour of maximumdanger."

This would have been highly effective. While most people equatefreedom with having a say in the laws that one lives under and theabsence of dictators, as Norman Rockwell so nicely illustrated withhis paintings, there are four freedoms; Freedom of Religion,Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, and Freedom from Fear.Without freedom from fear there is no hope for a normal productivelife.

Hunter also wrote a scene where Melanie jokingly says,

"this all must have started with a malcontent sparrow preachingrevolution"

But then there's an icy silence. And she says that when thesparrows came down the chimney she felt it was as if "they wantedeveryone in the house dead". Hitchco*ck removed both scenes.

Once the family is securely boarded-in the birds attack thehouse. Richard Matheson was right about not showing the birds toomuch. This scene is the most frightening in the picture. Its veryclaustrophobic. When a shutter comes loose Mitch is bitten by birdsas he secures it. When they start to peck through the door he nailsa dresser over it. He meets each challenge that he's faced with.Melanie, Lydia, and Cathy go through extreme panic attacks and itseems as though they might lose their battle and all be killed atany moment. Eventually the attack subsides.

Later, when everyone else is asleep, Melanie hears a noise andgrabs a flashlight to check it out. Hitchco*ck had great concernabout this scene and asked Hunter repeatedly why she would riskgoing upstairs and entering a room by herself with the birdssurrounding the house. It really does not seem logical but itprovides a very scary scene. Once Melanie enters the room of thesecond floor she finds that the birds have pecked through theceiling and she is savagely attacked.

Ray Berwick's crew threw birds in Tippi Hedren's face for a weekto get one minute of footage. The bird handlers wore thick rubbergloves up to their elbows to protect themselves from sharp clawsand breaks but Tippi had no such protection. Shooting had to bestopped when one scratched her eye badly. In Kathleen Kas

bernadettestclair.wikispaces.combernadettestclair.wikispaces.com/file/view/The+birds+pa… · Web view“The Birds” by Daphne Du Maurier The Short Story. The story is taken from - [DOC Document] (2024)

References