Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963 Trailer)

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videojaxx
July 23, 2009

The Birds (1963) is a suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock It depicts a small town in the San Francisco Bay area which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of massive bird attacks over the course of a few days. The screenplay was written by Evan Hunter, who also wrote novels under that name and penned the 87th Precinct novels using the pseudonym Ed McBain.
The Plot : [WARNING-CONTAINS SPOILERS!] Based on a novelette by Daphne Du Maurier, the plot centers around beautiful young Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a wealthy socialite whose father is an owner of a large newspaper, visits a San Francisco pet shop to pick up a mynah bird she has ordered for her aunt. There, Melanie meets Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), a lawyer who is looking for a pair of lovebirds to give to his sister. Mitch sees Melanie and then pretends to mistake her for a salesperson. Melanie acts the role, believing that she's fooling Mitch, until he reveals that he knew all along that she did not work in the shop. Melanie, infuriated, inquires as to the reason for Mitch's behavior. He mentions a previous encounter that he had with her in court.
Intrigued by Mitch, Melanie buys the lovebirds and finds the address of Mitch's home in Bodega Bay, a small village up the Pacific coast. She drives to Bodega Bay and delivers the birds by sneaking across the small harbor in a motor boat. Melanie walks right into the Brenner residence and leaves the birds on a footstool, with a note. As she is heading back across the bay, Mitch observes her through a pair of binoculars, then circles around the bay in his car to meet her -- but just as she is about to pull up to the dock, a seagull swoops down and gashes her head.
Over the next few days, the avian attacks continue, as Melanie's initial relationship with Mitch, his clinging mother, Lydia (Jessica Tandy), his 11-year-old sister, Cathy (Veronica Cartwright), and Cathy's teacher (and Mitch's former lover) Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette) further develop. The second strange bird-incident occurs when Melanie stays for the night at Hayworth's house and a gull kills itself upon hitting the front door. The incidents escalate when Lydia visits her friend. Unable to find him after calling his name, she discovers him dead in his bedroom his eyes pecked out and with gashes all over his body.

Melanie calls her father, a newspaper publisher in San Francisco, from a bar. The conversation rivets the interest of others, who listen in. A fisherman tells her that the gulls have been following his boats. An old woman (Ethel Griffies), an amateur ornithologist, insists that the birds' attacks are an exaggeration, and that it is not possible for birds, let alone members of different avian species, to flock together and attack, as they don't possess the intelligence. Despite her words, and right outside the window, a motorist is attacked while filling his automobile with gasoline; he is knocked unconscious, the hose lands on the ground, and the gasoline continues to pump out onto the street, until it meets a man lighting a cigar. An explosion and fire result.
More deaths occur as the movie-goer is given a "bird's-eye" view of the scene, as the birds swoop in on the citizens on the town. As Melanie and others rush out of the bar to help, birds swoop down at them, and Melanie is forced to take refuge in a phone booth. Melanie is rescued by Mitch after the windows of the booth are broken by suicidal birds.
After this attack subsides, Melanie and Mitch collect Cathy at Annie's house. Noticing that crows are gathering at the school, they move quietly to Annie's home; they find Annie dead on her front porch and Cathy crying at the window.
Melanie and Mitch's family ultimately take refuge in Mitch's house, boarding up the doors and windows. In the evening, when everyone else is asleep, Melanie hears noises from the upper floor. She investigates a closed door only to find that the birds have broken through the roof. They attack her, sealing her in the room until Mitch comes to her rescue. Lydia and Mitch bandage Melanie's wounds, but determine she must get to a hospital. In a surreal and apocalyptic scene, a sea of landed birds ripples menacingly around them as they leave the house but do not attack, aside from a few isolated bites. The radio provides reports of several smaller attacks by birds in a few other communities in coastal California, and as the car slowly proceeds towards the road and picks up speed, the sea of birds parts. The film concludes with the car driving away, down the coast road and out of sight, as thousands of birds watch. (Source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(film)
Trailer Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Category: Entertainment

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I love it

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where can i watch it online?

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