#244 — “The Birds” (1963) Alfred Hitchcock
There’s not much more that needs to be said about this movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out, along with all the other top and middle range Hitchcock.
By this point in his career, Hitch had started his decline but there are still amazing set pieces in the film: every single bird attack has its own horror/charm, even when it’s clearly actors waving their hands frantically while superimposed finches swirl around them.
The first hour is the least successful part, due mainly to the woefully miscast leads. Hitchcock wanted Grace Kelly and Cary Grant. He got ‘Tippi’ Hedren and Rod Taylor. Any hopes for light romantic comedy are jettisoned as soon as our would-be lovers meet cute at the pet store. There is simply no chemistry between them.
And Hedren is an ice princess. All of the frolicking fun that her character Melanie Daniels is supposed to have taken part in seems impossible from this humorless scold of a character. The fact that she plays tricks on people — including the lame scheme that instigates all the action in the film — never seems remotely plausible.
And this makes the first slow burn hour a little hard to take on a second viewing.
If it’s your first time through, then just enjoy it for what is: Hitchcock pulling a literal “Vertigo” on Hedren and trying to mold her into Grace Kelly; it never works. He would’ve been better off rewriting both her and Rod Taylor’s characters entirely.
But he didn’t, so we get this slow misfire that starts to come to life at around the 45 minutes mark, after Hedren arrives at the creepy little seaside town of Bodega Bay, whose residents feel lifted right out of a Shirley Jackson novel: everyone seems to be making veiled threats all the time, especially the ones who eat at “The Tides” restaurant — the location of the best scenes in the movie.
Also: Jessica Tandy is marvelous. As just about the only person onscreen with understandable motivations, Tandy digs into her role as Rod Taylor’s overprotective mother, creating a fully rounded character. Her breakdown is the emotional highlight of the film.
Though one might wish that Grace Kelly had been cast as Melanie Daniels, the truth is, she never would’ve put up with Hitchcock’s horrific plan for filming the final bird attack. Only a green, terrified performer like Hedren would’ve let someone literally torture them while making an entire crew complicit.
The infamous attic attack in which Hedren was locked in a cage for five days straight while stunt people threw live gulls at her head makes watching the last part of the movie a tough sit. I don’t mind seeing actors ‘acting’ terror - but watching an actor in genuine terror is too much for my sensibilities.
I can usually separate the genius from the ‘monster’ —I can still watch Polanksi’s “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby” — but this is time I have to bow out.
Hitchcock is responsible for some of the finest cinema ever made and “The Birds” is full of tension building sequences that have become the endlessly imitated gold standard for thrillers.
But knowing the backstory, it’s simply too hard to watch poor ‘Tippi’ go through her five day ordeal. I don’t care how brilliantly the movie accomplishes its many horrors. Her sacrifice makes it impossible to enjoy.
#246 - “I Know Where I’m Going” (1945) Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Out of the ten films on this list, Powell and Pressburger’s postwar romance is the easiest to recommend.
If you haven’t seen it, then you are in for a real treat. Wendy Hiller gives a marvelously funny and endearing performance as the bullheaded Joan Webster who has set her sights on marrying Sir Robert Bellinger, a wealthy, much older industrialist.
The title tells you all you need to know about Joan: She lives her life with utter certainty about every possible step. But the world keeps getting in the way.
To say much more would be to ruin the fun of discovering “I Know Where I’m Going” for yourself. Just watch it: it’s a true hidden gem (and a heart pounding love story).
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