With Universal's 100th anniversary in full swing, and a one-night big screen showing on Wednesday, September 19th, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds is attracting attention again. HBO will soon premiere The Girl, a look at the relationship between the director and the star Tippi Hedren. The Master's 1963 thriller still produces shudders among grownups (myself included), and like any great film, there are quite a few stories behind it:
1. The movie is adapted from a story by Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca), but is also based on fact. Hitchcock noticed a 1961 newspaper story about a group of disoriented seabirds attacking people in California's Monterey Bay. (Their behavior was attributed to eating poisoned plankton and squid.) Hitch thought it would make a good idea for a movie.
2. It wasn't supposed to be Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren starring. Hitch had the screenplay written with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in mind.
3. When Grace Kelly turned the Master down, Hitch cast a wide net looking for a newcomer to star. He saw Tippi Hedren in a soda commercial, and rushed her to the Universal set for three days of screen tests at a cost of $25,000. During the actual six month shoot, Hedren was needed on the set every day; she appeared in nearly every major scene.
4. Hitchcock's customary cameo appearance catches him leaving Davidson's Pet Shop as Hedren enters. Hitch is being dragged out the door by two dogs--his own terriers, Geoffrey and Stanley.
5. The Birds used hundred of real trained birds, as well as a few mechanical ones and some animation. Effects wizard Ub Iwerks was nominated for an Oscar for Best Special Effects--but lost that year to Cleopatra! (I'm still working on this one: aside from Elizabeth Taylor's eye makeup, what special effects were there in Cleopatra?) Iwerks worked for Walt Disney since the early 1920s. He had to ask Walt's permission to work with Hitchcock.
6. Bird trainer Ray Berwick was brought in when it became apparent that the mechanical birds simply didn't look real. The ideal situation would have been to train baby birds as they were growing up, but there wasn't time for that. The film desperately needed grown ravens and crows. Professional trappers were called with a promise to pay $10 per bird captured. "Not one trapper came up with a single bird!" Berwick said; he and his assistant later tracked and captured part of a 20,000 flock of crows.
7. The birds weren't antagonistic towards the actors at first, although it certainly looked that way. The birds had motivation: before film takes the actors' hands were smeared with shrimp, anchovies, and ground meat to attract the feathered foes. As shooting progressed, bird bites became more common; one day alone 12 crew members were nipped. And yes, the American Humane Society was on the set to make sure that no birds were harmed during filming. (You'd think they would have been more worried about Tippi Hedren...)
8. One very vocal critic of the film was the screenwriter, Evan Hunter, best known for writing the The Blackboard Jungle and the Ed McBain 89th Precinct mysteries. "I don't think Hitchcock was fair to my screenplay," Hunter lamented. Later he added, "I think Hitch is putting the world on when he pretends there is anything meaningful about The Birds. We were just trying to scare the hell out of people. Period."
One of this fall's most eagerly awaited television events is the October premiere of the HBO film The Girl, the true story of Alfred Hitchcock's obsession with his blond actresses--most notably his different relationship with Tippi Hedren, who starred in The Birds and Marnie for the Master of Mayhem.
At a screening for TV critics last week, Hedren, still glamorous at 82, pulled no punches in describing Hitchcock, whose perverse relationship with her affected her career. "I think we're dealing with a mind here that is incomprehensible," she said. "It was something I never experienced before," she added. "But it certainly wasn't love."
She continued to dissect Hitchcock's attitude towards women. "He was an extremely sad character. You're dealing with a brain here that was unusual, genius, and evil, and deviant, almost to the point of deviant."
Hitchcock's obsession with blondes--Grace Kelly, Doris Day, Vera Miles, Kim Novak, and Hedren--were legendary, but his disturbing behavior towards them was kept a secret. After his death, Hitchcock film critic Donald Spoto wrote the controversial book Spellbound By Beauty, which described the director's many "kinks." (Once, after being spurned by Hedren, Hitchcock sent her daughter, Melanie Griffith, a toy coffin with a perfect likeness of her mother inside.)
Hedren couldn't escape the harassment; it was, after all, the 1960s. "If it had happened today, I would have been a rich woman," she admitted. Nevertheless, Hedren added that Hitch was a great director. "There were times of delight and joy," she asserted.
Hedren worked closely with the screenwriter of The Girl to insure its authenticity, also collaborating with actress Sienna Miller, who portrays Hedren in the HBO film. Hitchcock is played by British actor Toby Jones, who gave a little-seen but hypnotic performance as Truman Capote in Infamous. How closely does Jones capture the aura of the Master?
"When I first heard Toby's voice as Hitchcock," Hedren stated, "I froze."
So many choices: 1963 was an important year in cinema. It was the beginning of the end of the studio regimes, yet the blockbusters were bigger than ever. Foreign films once again rose to prominence. And new stars emerged (Albert Finney, Richard Harris) while old-timers like Spencer Tracy still burned brightly:
1. It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World--The top grossing film of the year. Every known comic was packed into this laugh riot, about the greedy chase for a satchel of stolen cash. Loosely remade years later as Rat Race.
2. The Birds--Another unsettling Hitchcock masterpiece. One of the films I saw as a kid that still gives me the creeps. The unassuming town of Bodego Bay is under siege from birds of all kinds. Hitchcock hinted that the birds' rampage were punishment for the failings of the main characters. Absolutely terrifying special effects.
3.8 1/2--Frederico Fellini's masterpiece about a director (Marcello Mastroianni, as the director's alter ego) suffering from "director's block" and the women ini his life who are leaving him equally conflicted. Later remade as the musical Nine.
4. From Russia With Love--The second James Bond film is probably the one most rooted in Cold War reality. Look for Robert Shaw as a vicious blonde killer.
5. Hud--A modern American masterpiece. Paul Newman played the title role, an amoral man who ruins everything he touches. Oscars to Patricia Neal as the middle-aged housekeeper who is demoralized by Hud's brutishness, and to Melvyn Douglas as Hud's dispproving father.
6. The Pink Panther--The first in the series, and maybe still the best. Clumsy Inpsector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is after a notorious jewel thief. Robert Wagner and David Niven add to the fun.
7. The Leopard--A prince tries to preserve his family and class status during the tumultuous social upheavals of Sicily in the 1860s. Luchino Visconti's Italian film is noteworthy for its use of a true star: Burt Lancaster.
8. Tom Jones--The lusty, bawdy main character launched Albert Finney to stardom. Oscar for Best Picture.
9. Shock Corridor--The best "B" film of the year. Hellbent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, a journalist goes undercover and checks himself into a mental institution.
10. Charade--Stanley Donen directed two radiant stars, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, in this light-hearted thriller set in Paris.
For more info on The Birds on DVD, click on the pic:
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