Doomsday's Andrei Tarkovsky Love Fest

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Doomsday Burns Through His Alfred Hitchcock Blu-Ray Box Set

The Birds (1963)

View count: Second time




My short review from October 2015:







Alright, this movie is actually pretty good at least from the perspective of someone looking to watch a suspenseful movie. Looking back I'm sure the fact that I first watched it on a cold October night on the wet grass during a cemetery screening on an inflatable screen didn't help my overall viewing experience. I take back some of my criticisms, mainly that it's boring and there are few thrills. That isn't to say that much of what's going on isn't pretty ridiculous and I'm not even talking about the bird attacks. Ultimately it's an effective horror/suspense movie that has a lot of great shots that don't quite make you jump but rather make you go 'oh damn.' The surrounding character stories are almost laughable but those only exist to give us a little backstory to those who are about to get pecked to death next. We're here to see the original birdemic, not some soap opera!

The Birds might be the most simple Hitchcock movie that I've watched so far. Birds attack a coastal California town. There's not much else to it. We're introduced to a few central characters but I'll get into that later. What really makes The Birds work is not just the suspense but the build-up to what's about to happen. Maybe the two best shots of the whole movie involve the main character, Melanie Daniels. The first is when she's sitting outside a schoolhouse smoking a cigarette. She watches a crow land in the playground and turns away. When she turns back a couple more crows have joined. She turns away again, takes a drag, turns back and the entire playground is covered in hundreds of crows. She and the audience both know something's about to go down. Later on after she's been barricaded into a house she hears a commotion upstairs. It shouldn't be a anything urgent since they have trapped themselves inside rather successfully. She slowly goes to the next floor, slowly turns the doorknob and finds herself in a dark room face to face with hundreds of birds that have pounded their way in through the ceiling. They're such simple yet effective ways to heighten the tension and it's those things that you remember after the movie ends, not the actual bird attacks.

If you've ever taken a screenwriting class you'll remember one of the first lessons your instructor told you; never kill the kid. They might have also added that you should never kill the dog either. If you do either of those things the audience will turn on the movie and you'll never win them back. Of course you can find a hundred examples that prove otherwise. Look at Jaws, they killed off both the kid AND the dog. It's not whether you do it or not, it's how tastefully it's done. The Birds doesn't kill off any unsuspecting kids but it certainly does try. One of the many famous images from the movie is Melanie running with a group of school children as they flee from an attacking flock of crows. One girl is pinned to the ground as the crows sit on her back pecking at her. Many have bloody scratches on their faces. Others have birds tangled in their hair. For a movie from 1963 it probably felt like a bold, shocking move. This comes on the tail of Mitch's mother discovering a man in his bedroom, surrounded by birds with his eyes pecked out. If Psycho was meant to startle you, The Birds was meant to scare you. The most effective element to the story of The Birds is that nothing is explained about them. You never know why they attack people, why they stop, they just do. There's a pretty hammy scene where people trapped in a restaurant hypothesize that it's the end of the world and the standard 'humans are mucking things up' line, but that's about as little explanation that's given to their motive which is probably scarier than anything Hitchcock puts on screen. Also worth noting, there's a number of shots that feature copious amounts of bird poop which I thought was a nice touch.

But let's backtrack to the beginning of the movie, shall we? Birds aside, the characters in this movie are absolutely insane. The movie opens with our blonde bombshell Melanie picking up a bird in a bird store. The movie is called The Birds, you see. So she's waiting on a bird and a man walks in thinking that she works there. She pretends that she does and gives stupid, wrong answers to all the pretty basic questions he asks her. He asks if they have any lovebirds in stock that he wants to get his sister for her birthday. She says they do, pointing to a few that are another type of bird. When the game is up he reveals that he knows her name and knows her from seeing her in court. She smashed a window and the judge went easy on her. He tells her if it were up to him she'd be put away. He leaves and Melanie just won't have any of his trickery. She copies his license plate down, calls a guy who works at the newspaper her father owns, gets his address, buys two lovebirds and goes to drop them off at his apartment. A kindly neighbor tells her that he spends his weekends at Bodega Bay about 60 miles north. So what does she do? She drives 60 miles to the town he's at not even knowing where he lives. She gets an address from another knowledgable mail clerk, rents a boat, takes it across the bay, sneaks into his house and leaves the two lovebirds there. In short this woman is batshit crazy. When women want to know why men think they're all psychotic look no further than Melanie Daniels in The Birds. Any guy who witnessed a woman doing this to him, stealing his license plate number, getting his home address, stalking him and breaking and entering, would drop her at the bottom of a lake. Not Mitch though, he's got the hots for her. After all we do need a setup for the movie. Melanie rents a room from the local schoolteacher who also used to date Mitch. She reveals that Mitch has some 'mother' issues which is partly why he stays with her and his sister on weekends. Fortunately she's quickly killed off by the murderous birds which makes things less awkward for Melanie. Phew! But like I said earlier, these backstories are only meant to get these characters tangling with the birds. I don't know if Hitchcock and the writers intentionally made their characters to be this farcical but something about it makes it all work. We're too busy watching them duck from rogue seagulls to wonder why they don't just get in their car and drive away. They eventually do, they easily could have done it at any point in the movie but if they did it earlier there wouldn't be a movie so we should just shut up.

It might sound like I'm doing an about face on The Birds but I'm only going so far. There's a lot that's really good about The Birds that I appreciate now. At the same time the characters and their motivations are so ridiculous that it almost feels like a dark comedy. I said in my original post that The Birds wouldn't be in my rotation and I'll probably take that back. I'm sure I'll watch it again in the near future but I won't have the same expectations or standards for it compared to a movie like Vertigo. The Birds is a fun, well crafted and well made movie that hits you exactly when it wants to and might give you a laugh along the way, intentional or not.

I keep meaning to comment on your Hitchcock reviews but have fallen far behind. Time to do one massive catch-up.

Rope: Generally a solid and watchable movie, but there's not much exceptional to it once you got past the experiment. Solid movie, and I like seeing Stewart start to destabilize his screen presence with Hitchcock, but it's definitely not top-tier.

Rear Window: One of Hitchcock's best, no matter what Neverending says. As you point out, it's a great fusion of Hithcock's thriller elements with deeper characterization and theme. That defines most of his best stuff.

The Trouble with Harry: You sum this up well. It's not a particularly important film (even if it does dwell on major Hitch themes and is also the first time he worked with Bernard Herrmann), but it's good fun all the same.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934): I dig the original. Like you said, it's a little rough around the edges, but it's still a lean piece of work with some good set-pieces, a brisk pace, strong locale, and Peter motherfucking Lorre.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956): It is a solid and watchable Hitchcock film, but almost to the point of being a little dull. There's just nothing that's surprising about the movie, even beyond its status as a remake. Stewart is fine but gives his least interesting performance in a Hitchcock film and the villain blows. I also really don't like the travelogue heavy first act. Has some cool set-pieces and is generally pretty entertaining, but fails to really impress in the mighty house of Cock.

Vertigo: I've always loved Vertigo, but like you, it's a movie that gets better with time.

North by Northwest: No, it isn't very original, but it executes on the formula really damn well.

Rebecca: This is a movie I've warmed to over the years. The lack of Hitchcockian elements used to bum me out, but I think it works really well as a Gothic romance. Love the atmosphere. Third act is a bit wonky and the happy ending is a bit of a cop out, but I still dig it.

Spellbound: You make some good narrative criticisms. For me, the biggest problem with Spellbound is simply that it's kind of boring despite some rock solid filmmaking.

Notorious: This is probably the most I'm gonna disagree with you. I love Notorious. I think it's top five Hitchcock, maybe even top three. I don't think viewing the film strictly as a romance is the right way to look at it.The film is more about exploring abusive relationships and the contradictory double standards men often have around a woman's sexuality. The fact that Devlin is so resentful of Alicia's relationship to Sebastian, despite the fact that Devlin pushed her into it, has all sorts of interesting psychological implications. It's also disturbing how Alicia internalizes Devlin's abuse and begins to accept it. Then there's Alex, who seems to genuinely love Alicia, but when he finds out she's with another man, reverts to a child-like state and tries to kill her. Just the simple fact that Devlin and the other agents only use for Alicia is to use her as a sex object is also relevant. A lot of this is subtext to the thriller storyline, but I think those dark psychological undertones make the main narrative even more discomforting.

Psycho: Word.

Hitchcock: Haven't seen it. Looks a bit twee.

The Birds: I kinda suspect the character dynamics are deliberately silly and over the top. The way that all of this shit falls away quick once the birds start attacking seems to suggest that the silly relationship shit we typically concern ourselves with fall away during a natural disaster. A less pretentious answer, I wonder if Hitchcock was trying to do a similar misdirect as Psycho, and he figured the more elaborate the backstory, the more likely viewers would be to get lost in the red herring narrative.

Since Kevin Smith almost died, it's a good time for Doomsday to do a retrospective. Going from Clerks to Yoga Hosers is gonna be a wild ride.

There's still opportunity for the Renny Harlin rundown.

I think I speak for all of us when I say that I think Uwe Boll would a better use of your time.

Renny Harlin is better for Doomsday’s maternity thread.

We now continue as....

Doomsday Burns Through His Alfred Hitchcock Blu-Ray Box Set

Marnie (1964)

View count: First time



At first glance I thought it was pretty cool to be watching a movie featuring Sean Connery while he was in the heyday of his Bond acclaim. Aside from Darby O'Gill and the Little People and, ahem, Zardoz I'm not overly familiar with Connery's work pre-Untouchables outside of the Bond franchise. He brings his newfound star power to Hitchcock's filmography with Marnie, a romance mystery movie that on paper sounds like it would be intriguing and a step away from the horror movies that Hitchcock was producing with Psycho and The Birds. As a film however Marnie is about as bland and plain as the poster above. In a way I suppose I should give it some credit for attempting to be something that falls outside the standard Hitchcock thriller fare but it doesn't do so completely. It felt like it half attempted to be a romance and half attempted to be a mystery but much of it seemed like elements we've already seen before.

Marnie, played by Tippi Hedren in her second Hitchcock film after The Birds, is a con artist and thief. She gains employment at big companies, learns the ropes then steals any fortune they might have on site before hitting the road and assuming another of her many identities. She finds a job at Rutland and Co. and finds herself under the watchful eye of Mark Rutland (Connery). Rutland is wary of her, in fact he's sure he's seen her somewhere before, but that doesn't stop him from hiring Marnie nor does it prevent him from falling in love with her. She eventually lights off with a pile of Rutland money but Mark quickly tracks her down. Rather than hand her over to the police he tells her that they're getting married. There's something about her that attracts him to her and he essentially blackmails her into going along with it. While Mark gives her attention, gifts and affection she shies away and refuses to so much as let him touch her. After a disastrous honeymoon cut short Mark hires a private investigator to delve into her background. In the meantime Mark's nosy sister-in-law begins to suspect that something is up with Mark and his new wife. Before long Marnie is found out that she's a thief and Mark tries to help crack her tough, cold exterior. To do so however means that he has to dig into a long buried past that will change her and their relationship forever.

In previous reviews I mentioned how a lot of the decision-making among some of Hitchcock's characters can be a little suspect. It's par for the course for a lot of older films especially when trying to kickstart romance between some of the characters. With Marnie however it takes a step away from logic and moves toward creepy. The way Mark goes about getting Marnie under his grasp is a question unto itself but the fact that he does it while suspecting that Marnie is a thief who ripped off one of his clients is a hard pill to swallow. Yes, people fell in love very quickly in the movies of those days but not only does Mark throw himself at her, he completely ignores the many red flags she sends up including trying to drown herself in a pool. Eventually Mark's determination enables him to track down Marnie's mother (more 'mother' themes) who reveals the big secret that made Marnie who she is; Marnie's mother was a prostitute and when one of her clients (Bruce Dern in a very early role) tried to attack Marnie, Marnie clubbed him over the head with a poker and killed him. The blood from that event also explained why Marnie would panic and freeze whenever she saw the color red, an effect that Hitchcock used with red filters that was exactly the same as what he used in Vertigo. I only mention that because it just doesn't feel like a movie that's adding anything nor do I know what it's purpose was. Marnie feels like someone else's imitation of a Hitchcock movie rather than one of his bona fide productions. The motivations of the characters are questionable, the final twist is underwhelming and much of it just isn't that engaging or interesting. I have four movies left in my Hitchcock blu-ray odyssey, I'm just hoping this isn't the beginning of a downward trend.

But would it have heart?



Yeah, Marnie is sort of a mixed bag. It has a lot of interesting elements and it never coalesces perfectly, nor does it compare favourably to Vertigo. Also, this is definitely the beginning of a downward trend.

Hitch has one good movie left in him. I do sort of find Torn Curtain and Topaz interesting in a "why doesn't this work" way? Torn Curtain has the set-up of a classic Hitchcock film and Topaz is a clear effort to adapt his style to a modern sensibility, but both end up being really dull. Largely for the same reason too. Both movies are overplotted yet nothing really happens.

You just watched the worse Hitchcock movie. Frenzy & Family Plot are great.