The Birds (1963)

** ½ out of ****

Alfred Hitchcock movies are very hot and cold for me. Some, such as “Psycho”, “Rear Window” and “Strangers on a Train”, are ridiculously brilliant and often highly unnerving. Others - equally lauded by critics - such as “Rebecca”, “Notorious” and “To Catch a Thief”, just don't work at all for me. “The Birds” falls into a category that I would say is in between. This film, along with some other Hitchcock entries like “Rope” and “North by Northwest” are movies that I enjoy and badly want to like, but am not quite convinced that I do.

Tippi Hedron plays Melanie, a spoiled and not particularly likeable rich girl that develops a  crush on Mitch (Rod Taylor) after he plays her for a bit of a fool in a department store. She finds out where he lives only to discover that he's gone up the coast for the weekend – like any good stalker she follows him there. The coastal town is a quaint one, a place where everyone knows everyone else and the townspeople help her find her man. Even a former girlfriend of Mitch's helps her out. The former girlfriend is Annie, the schoolteacher (played by an unbelievably beautiful Suzanne Pleshette, who never looked this good before or since).

But strange things start to happen, Randomly and with no explanation, birds start acting aggressively toward the townspeople. Melanie is divebombed by a gull as she sails across the bay, more gulls attack a bunch of kids at a birthday party, and Mitch's house is invaded by sparrows that come in a huge drove down the chimney. Each attack gets a little worse until fatalities start to occur. Mitch and his family, along with Melanie, end up barricaded into his house, trying to find a safe haven against the attacking ornithoids.

Don't get me wrong – this is a very watchable film, full of tension and intrigue. The characters are interesting (if not always particularly likeable) and the situations are compelling. Maybe my issue is that there is never any explanation as to why the birds act that way. Maybe it's because, like many other Hitchcock movies, the ending offers no real resolution at all. However, in those other Hitchcock endings things have been explained to the point where no final solution works.... here the birds may just keep coming and coming forever. The lack of explanation and resolution leaves me a bit cold.

It's good movie-making and, for its time, the effects are well done. I have no issue with any of the actors or characterizations. But where some of Hitchcock's movies work on every level, this one doesn't. When it's over, though it has been an enjoyable time, you are not left with the feeling that you were really treated to a meaningful story. It doesn't fall into the melodramatic region occupied by “To Catch a Thief”, but it isn't one of Hitchcock's classics (no matter what Rotten Tomatoes might say). Worth a watch, no question, but not one of the best from one of my favorite movie-makers