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Revisiting ‘The Birds’

This week I continue to revisit films from the Universal library scheduled to receive the full restoration and Blu-Ray treatment in celebration of the studio’s centenary. Today, I will take a closer look at Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror film, The Birds.
In his follow to the granddaddy of the modern slasher film, Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock brings terror to the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Here’s the setup (synopsis courtesy of MUBI.com):

[Hitchcock] couples a tone of rigorous morality with dark humor to create a thriller that begins as a light comedy and ends as an apocalyptic allegory.

Loosely based on a Daphne du Maurier story and a (recent) Santa Monica newspaper account, “Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes,” The Birds [tells the story of] wealthy reformed party girl Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), who enjoys a brief flirtation with lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a San Francisco pet shop and decides to follow him to his Bodega Bay home.

Bearing a gift of two lovebirds, Melanie quickly strikes up a romance with Mitch while contending with his possessive mother and boarding at his ex-girlfriend’s house.

And with that, (literally) all hell breaks loose. First, the birds attack a children’s party; while it startled the crowd, they quickly dismiss it as a terrifying, but fluke occurrence. Gradually, the attacks increase in frequency and ferocity.

As mentioned above, for the time, the special effects were groundbreaking. Of course by today’s CGI standards, they look a little dated; but for me this is irrelevant. The terror behind the film is not in the realism or detail of what you are seeing but rather the terror lies in the mere fact that the birds have decided to turn on civilization apparently without any provocation. In a moment of levity, right in the midst of the birds’ reign of terror, patrons of a diner have a debate about the terror WE have unleashed and the possibility that this is nature’s retaliation. And with a sense of wicked irony, we see a patron ordering and eating some chicken.

In her first starring role, Tippi Hedren is the epitome of Hitchcock’s “Icy Blonde”. There is a lot more that can be discussed about the psycho-sexuality of her and the other characters in the story, but I will leave that to more qualified folks who have spoken and written about this subject extensively.

At its best, The Birds is signature Hitchcock with its high level of craft and execution. It is a thrilling and fun piece of film that is bound to entertain you.

A Few Bits of Trivia (Source: IMDb.com)

  • Tippi Hedren was actually cut in the face by a bird in one of the shots.
  • As previously stated, there is no musical score for the film except for the sounds created on the mixtrautonium (photo at right), by Oskar Sala, and the children singing in the school. In spite of this, Hitchcock’s frequent musical collaborator, Bernard Herrmann is credited as a sound consultant.
  • The scene where Tippi Hedren is ravaged by birds near the end of the movie took a week to shoot. The birds were attached to her clothes by long nylon threads so they could not get away.
  • The film does not finish with the usual “THE END” title because Alfred Hitchcock wanted to give the impression of unending terror.
  • A number of endings were being considered for this film. One that was considered would have showed the Golden Gate Bridge completely covered by birds.

Hitchcock’s Cameo

Hitchcock can be seen at the start of the film walking two dogs out of the pet shop Melanie Daniels is entering.

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The Best Picture Project: [An American in Paris, 1951]

First, a big shout out to Ruth at FlixChatter for putting this blogging event together. With a few days left until “the big night,” she has enlisted a few bloggers to take a look back at decades past and select one Best Picture winner from the decade we chose.

And the winner is …

As the title of this blog post suggests, the decade I have selected is the 1950’s and the year I will focus on is 1951 – the year in which Vincente Minelli’s musical An American in Paris took home the Oscar™ for Best Picture.

An American in Paris is a musical film set to the works of George and Ira Gershwin and tells the story of American G.I. Jerry (Gene Kelly) who has decided to remain in Paris following the Second World War. He makes a meager living selling his artistic wares on the streets, until one day he meets a wealthy patroness (Nina Foch) who takes him under her wing, although it is quite obvious that she is interested in more than buying his artwork. No sooner does he begin to adjust to his new situation that he meets and falls in love with ebullient Parisian Lise (Leslie Caron), who has a set of romantic complications of her own. And as with any of these stories, the course to true love never runs smoothly.

Take it or leave it, one thing is certain – Minelli sure knew how to direct a musical. And when combined with Gene Kelly’s masterful choreography (he choreographed all the dance sequences in the film), you end up with some lovely numbers, including a climatic, 16-minute ballet. This dance sequence, which probes Jerry’s momentary flight of fancy, needs to be seen to be understood as the thing of beauty it is and is well worth the price of admission.

For all the singing and dancing, let us not forget to give credit to the supporting players. Special notice goes to comedian/pianist Oscar Levant, who plays struggling composer Adam, a close associate of Kelly’s Jerry. His dry wit and deadpan delivery offer an interesting counterbalance to the bright spectacle that surrounds him.

The Competition

I know that 1939 is often known as the Golden Year for H-wood, but surely 1951 cannot be too far behind.

An American in Paris beat out the following competition in the Best Picture sweepstakes:

  • The Elia Kazan production of A Streetcar Named Desire in which Marlon Brando gave his breakthrough film performance as Stanley Kowalski.
  • Quo Vadis, the swords and sandals Roman epic
  • Decision by Dawn, a WWII drama directed by Anatole Litvak
  • A Place in the Sun, the sweeping tragic drama directed by George Stevens and starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters.

As if this list of nominees was not impressive enough, a closer look at the year that was 1951 reveals several films are proven are classics in their own right (and equally worthy of the highest plaudits). Among them are:

  • Detective Story
  • Show Boat
  • Ace in the Hole
  • The Lavender Hill Mob
  • The African Queen
  • Strangers on a Train
  • Scrooge
  • The Day the Earth Stood Still
  • Alice in Wonderland
  • The Thing from Another Planet

Did the Academy get it right?

Of course this is a purely subjective question but let’s take a look more closely at what made An American in Paris rise above the other films to take home the awards ceremony’s top prize. According to American Movie Classics’ blog, filmsite.org, the musical’s victory was a bit of a surprise in a year when it was matched up against dramatic heavyweights A Place in the Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire. Both films were heavily favored to receive the Best Picture gong. In the end, the prevailing theory is that when it came to voting time, the two films cancelled each other out, allowing the dark horse An American in Paris to pull off the upset.

As much as I enjoyed the musical whimsy of An American in Paris, my money would have definitely been on Streetcar or A Place in the Sun. Even now, 60 years after the ceremony, I see why Academy voters were split, although Streetcar might get the slight edge.

 

So there you have it. Have you seen An American in Paris? What did you think about it?

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Revisiting “Pillow Talk”

As part of my continuing series looking back at some of Universal Studios’ 100 year old back catalog, I will now focus on the 1959 romantic comedy Pillow Talk.

Here’s the setup: Jan Morrow (Doris Day), is a very successful interior designer who shares a Manhattan party line (look it up, folks) with equally successful Broadway composer, man-about-town and all around ladies’ man, Brad Allen (Rock Hudson). Much to Jan’s irritation, Brad is constantly engaged on the line and in a funny sequence, we hear the little ditty he sings to each of his paramours by simply swapping out their respective names in the lyrics.

As if that were not annoying enough, she has to bat away the advances of one of her clients, the wealthy Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall). Jonathan, not knowing that there is a connection between the two, turns to his dear friend Brad airing his grievances about Jan. Brad, of course, recognizes the name and proceeds to prod his buddy to tell him more. In a phrase, he likes what he hears. In fact he is so intrigued that he attempts (unsuccessfully) to make amends with Jan, with obvious designs of seducing her, eventually. But having failed in his efforts he is left with no other recourse. Or so we are lead to think.

Later that evening, the pair just happen to be at the same nightspot. Brad hears her name, sees her (finally). But knowing that he cannot approach her as Brad Allen, he adopts the identity of Rex Stetson – Texas cattleman. The stage is set for an all-out battle of the sexes that does not necessarily go as planned, but is fun to watch.

As far as the acting is concerned, I think you get as much as one would expect from Rock Hudson and Doris Day, which is more than fine. It should be noted that Day’s acting ability often took a back seat to her dual role of ‘American Sweetheart’ and her chart-topping success as a vocalist (which is a shame). On the other side, Rock Hudson gets to turn on his Texan drawl and essentially play two characters: the debonair Manhattanite Brad and the Southern gentleman Rex. I did not think about this until I started writing up this piece, but to be able to pull off such a feat without boring your audience requires some skill. To modern audiences, Rock Hudson the actor may be easily dismissed as that guy from those 1950s romantic comedies and kitschy melodramas, but in this role there is at least evidence of solid acting bona fides (see John Frankenheimer’s Seconds for further proof). The pair’s chemistry is spot-on, and the film’s success would lead to two more films (Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers) and produce a lifelong friendship off-screen.

A couple of my favorite words in the acting credit rolls are THELMA RITTER. Here she plays Jan’s interfering, boozy housekeeper, Alma. For those familiar with Ritter’s work, you know well that her pithy delivery alone is worth the price of admission. She serves as the audience’s way in – and says what many of us in the audience are probably thinking.

In the role of Hudson’s second fiddle Jonathan, Tony Randall is equally affable, if not a bit annoying at times. Just the way he is supposed to be!

Pillow Talk also heavily relied on the split-screen technique, as opposed cutting to Hudson and Day separately, during their party line ‘interactions.’

And no Doris Day feature would be complete without her pleasant voice singing the signature tune:

Pillow Talk Lobby Card

The writing is witty and at times a bit saucy. And the cynics among us may be tempted (but should not, at least on first viewing) to pick apart every word of innuendo that comes out of Hudson’s mouth; in particular there is one scene when, in Brad’s efforts to court Jan, he essentially emasculates himself while on the phone with her. This, in fact, is a common theme of films (principally rom-coms) during this time. It is but one of several elements of Pillow Talk (including the aforementioned split screen) that Peyton Reed spoofs in 2003’s Down With Love, starring Renée Zellwegger and Ewan MacGregor.

 

FUN FACT (Courtesy of Wikipedia): The director, Michael Gordon is the maternal grandfather of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This film marked Gordon’s return to feature film production, following his blacklist during the infamous and controversial HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) period.

In a world where we are offered a buffet of poorly executed, totally vapid confection and told it is a romantic comedy, I say take a look at Pillow Talk to see how it should be done.

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