'The Birds' (1963)

Oops, typo. That clerk has been sacked. Refresh and try it again.

Can't say it enough. I absolutely love this movie! One of my all time favorites.

Hitchcock actually filmed THE BIRDS in two nearby towns, Bodega and Bodega Bay, CA. He merged the two towns into one. The schoolhouse is in Bodega and The Tides restaurant is in Bodega Bay. The original Tides restaurant burned down but its been replaced. It has a gift shop filled with BIRDS items like shirts and stuffed blackbirds. It's very popular. Everyone STILL loves the movie. The schoolhouse is still standing and is now a private residence. Whenever we're in the area we swing by and there are always people standing in front taking pictures. It's absolutely beautiful country out there.Hitchcock loved Northern California.


Fun Fact:
In nearby Santa Rosa, the SHADOW OF A DOUBT house still stands. It's beautiful. If the Newtons still own it they could probably sell it for millions now.

When you were posting your pictures I was posting my account of my visit to Bodega Bay (my first) just about a month ago. That Birds schoolhouse, now a residence, is almost like a pilgrimage for a lot of people. For a movie 54 years old, it sure gets a lot of respect. There were others, younger people, there at the same time we were - taking pictures, as you said. Thanks for posting.

I have read that 5% of Santa Rosa housing stock has been destroyed by the wildfires that still threaten the area. I have tried to find some news about the Hitchcock location, but was not successful in finding out if the Newton house is safe.

On another thread some time back, I referred to "the wrongly-accused man on the run" as "Hitchcock's most oft-revisited theme," which was actually a misstatement; that's merely a device: the theme represented was that of chaos thrust upon a world of order, and The Birds is at once Hitchcock's most overt - in the out-of-nowhere bird attacks themselves - and yet most abstract - in their inexplicable nature - exploitation of that theme.

It's no more about bird attacks than The 39 Steps and Notorious are about spies or espionage; they're merely the device, and why they occur is of absolutely no consequence. Any explanation would not only add nothing to the film, but would detract from a primary aspect of its appeal: its inscrutability. What is of consequence is how five people, and those in their small community periphery, react to unexplained events that throw ordered lives into chaos, and how the default emotional position of each is brought to bear upon those reactions.

Sure-of-himself Mitch Brenner is a San Francisco attorney during the workweek and de facto head of the Bodega Bay household of his widowed mother and much younger sister on weekends. Independent and self-reliant, he's exact in his beliefs about law, order, justice and duty, and pursues his commitment to each. And when chaos descends, he's decisive and practical in his actions. 

His needy mother Lydia has never fully recovered from her husband's death or adjusted to his absence. "It's odd how you depend on someone for strength, and then suddenly all the strength is gone, and you're alone," she says, and the emotional dependence she's transferred to Mitch leaves her open to near-breakdown in crisis.

Mitch's sister Cathy is a reasonably well-adjusted child in spite of Lydia's distance and reserve, which very likely contribute to her emotional accessibility: where Lydia's guarded, Cathy is open, welcoming affection from wherever it's offered. 

Annie Hayworth, Cathy's schoolteacher, is all about forbearance and quiet self-sacrifice. Following an unsuccessful relationship with Mitch in San Francisco years earlier, she's relocated to Bodega Bay to remain a part of his life, but harbors no illusions, even offering helpful advice to a new romantic prospect of her former inamorato. And that sense of self-sacrifice will come to be applied at a moment when it matters most.

Melanie Daniels, the central character drawn in detail as a flighty and headstrong sophisticate abandoned in childhood by her mother and indulged by a wealthy and powerful father, is nevertheless something of a cipher, presented as the enigmatic human analogy to the avian chaos descending upon the isolated seaside community and the Brenner family. And this is as it should be, from Hitchcock's thematic standpoint: her arrival and the concurrent and escalating attacks each mirror the other as intrusions upon the order and stability of both the family and the community.

While an outcome of those intrusions will embody encouraging resolutions to deficits in the lives of at least three of these principal characters, their futures remain at the close as ambiguous as the film itself. And this is also as it should be, providing as it does an apropos quality of thematic unity.

The Birds is justly celebrated as one of Hitchcock's memorably crafted roller-coaster rides, delivering thrills and chills with calculated, rhythmic precision but, as with any of his best exemplars of the form, it delivers substance that's as intricate and foundational as any to be found underpinning the most scream-inducing amusement park attraction, and upon which they all depend.              
         

Spiderwort,
I love Sebastopol, another idyllic little town in the area. We love to go to nearby Kozlowski Farms for their pies and jellies.

Anyway:
I seem to recall reading somewhere (though I can't remember where) that Hitchcock wanted an alternative ending. He wanted Melanie and the Brenners to successfully escape Bodega Bay and drive back toward San Francisco. As they drive over the hill from Marin County they see the Golden Gate Bridge completely covered with Birds. THE END. However, the powers that be (the studio?) would not allow such a bleak ending, much to Hitchcock's dismay. I think that would have been a spectacular ending. Has anyone else ever heard this or did I dream it?

love the movie, saw it again a few months ago