Tippi Hedren, who, by the way, is Melanie Griffith's mother, plays San Francisco resident Melanie Daniels who meets a lawyer in a pet shop. The lawyer, played by Rod Taylor, piques her interest in a strange conversatiuon in which she pretends to be a saleslady selling him two lovebirds. He saw through her ruse and she figures she will turn the tables by discovering who he is and buying him a surprise gift of the lovebirds. She discovers that although he lives in San Francisco, he spends weekends with his mother and little sister in a coastal community 60 miles north called Bodega Bay.



She makes the trip up to Bodega Bay and interesting relationships start to develop. She discovers that the local school teacher was an earlier romantic interest of Taylor's character and she discovers that his mother, played by Jessica Tandy, is somewhat distant and detached. She has a discussion, about the two, with the teacher (played by Suzanne Pleshette) and there is interesting character development in the works. These developing relationships take a different turn, however, when there are creepy, frightening attacks by groups of birds. A group of gulls breaks up a child's birthday party. Later, a larger group of crows attacks frightened school children. Each successive attack grows in intensity and in number of birds involved.



There is a climatic scene in which Melanie is attacked by gulls who bore their way into an upstairs bedroom. The history of the filming of this frightening scene is fascinating. Director, Alfred Hitchcock, wanted real birds, not fake ones used. He also, wanted Hedren, not a stunt woman or double being attacked. To get the birds to peck at Hedren, some were tied to her. Tippi Hedren must have been one heck of a good trooper to go through all that in order to film this scene the way Hitchcock wanted it. And, of course, she had to go through a lot since the scene was filmed in multiple takes.



Anyway, this was a frightening movie but there are lots of questions unanswered. The character development gets cut off as the focus of the film shifts to the bird attacks. Thus, there are unanswered questions about who some of the characters really are and what makes them tick. Also, we never get even a hint of what it was that set the birds off. Because of these unanswered qestions, I waver between 4 and 5 stars. However, I think that Hitchcock set out, ultimately, to make an action packed horror film so, rather than look for anything deeper (despite the hints of interesting character development) I will err on the generous side, therefore, 5 stars. Pushing me towards 5 stars are some interesting views into human nature. Some townspeople, such as the local law enforcement officer, make light of the reports of bird attacks. Certainly, it is human nature to try to deny something that is so frightening. There is "end of the world" preaching, and there is scapegoating as some provincial locals think that the outsider, Melanie Daniels, must have had something to do with the frightening events.