The Birds (1963) | Presenting Hitchcock Podcast

Gooooood evening. In this months episode of Presenting Hitchcock, Cory and Aaron are in total shock over the greatness of “The Birds”.

Trailer:

The Picture:

Picture Title: The Birds

Written by: (From the story by) Daphne Du Maurier, (Screenplay by) Evan Hunter

Starring: Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Tippi Hedren and Veronica Cartwright

Directed by:Alfred Hitchcock

Year Released: 1963

Our Favourite Trivia:

DIRECTOR CAMEO:At the start of the movie walking two dogs out of the pet shop (the dogs were actually his, white terriers named Geoffrey and Stanley).

The use of standard bluescreen techniques for doing matte shots of the birds proved to be unacceptable. The rapid movement of the birds, especially their wings, caused excessive blue fringing in the shots. It was determined that the sodium vapor process could be used to do the composites. (SVP shoots two separate elements of footage simultaneously with a beam-splitter — one reel is regular film stock and the other is film stock with emulsion sensitive to the sodium vapor wavelength. The result is very precise matte shots (much more than traditional blue screen effects), necessary due to the “fringing” of the image from the rapid flapping of the birds’ wings. So yeah, The Birdsis part cartoon.)The only studio in America that was equipped for this process was the Walt Disney studio. UbIwerks, who had become the world’s leading expert on the sodium vapor process, was assigned to this production.

This movie featured three hundred seventy effects shots. The final shot is a composite of thirty-two separately filmed elements.

The climactic scene, in which Melanie (Tippi Hedren) is attacked in the bedroom, took seven days to shoot. Hedren said, “It was the worst week of my life.” The physical and emotional toll of filming this scene were so strong on her that production was shut down for a week afterwards and Hedren ended up in the hospital. When Mitch carries Melanie down the stairs, it is actually Tippi Hedren’s stand-in being carried by Rod Taylor as Hedren was still in hospital.

When the children are running down the street from the schoolhouse, extra footage was shot back on the Universal sound stages to make the scene more terrifying. A few of the children were brought back and put in front of a process screen on a treadmill. They ran in front of the screen on the treadmill with the Bodega Bay footage behind them while a combination of real and fake crows were attacking them. There were three rows of children, and when the treadmill was brought up to speed, it ran very fast. On a couple of occasions, several of the children in the front fell and caused the children in the back to fall as well. It was a very difficult scene to shoot, and took a few days to get it right. The birds used were hand puppets, mechanical, and a couple were trained live birds.

Mitch Zanich, owner of the Tides Restaurant at the time of shooting, told Sir Alfred Hitchcock he could shoot there if the lead male in the movie was named after him, and Hitchcock gave him a speaking part in the movie. Hitchcock agreed: Rod Taylor’s character was named Mitch Brenner, and Mitch Zanich was given a speaking part. After Melanie is attacked by a seagull, Mitch Zanich can be heard saying to Mitch Brenner, “What happened, Mitch?”

When audiences left the U.K. premiere at the Odeon, Leicester Square, London, they were greeted by the sound of screeching and flapping birds from loudspeakers hidden in the trees to scare them further. Also attending the London premiere were two flamingos, fifty red cardinals and starlings, and six penguins.

This movie does not finish with the usual “THE END” title because Sir Alfred Hitchcock wanted to give the impression of unending terror.

The Random Draw for Next Picture:

Next up, we’ll be discussing “Waltzes From Vienna” aka “Strauss’ Great Waltz” (1934).

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