MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
The Birds (1963, 120 minutes)
In 1960, Alfred HItchcock made the leap from pictures filled with mystery and intrigue—Vertigo and North By Northwest—to the sheer terror of Psycho. The Birds continues down that twisted path to a place where horrifying things happen when nature goes berserk.
As Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), young, beautiful and rich, strides across San Francisco’s Union Square toward Davidson’s Pet Shop to pick up a Mynah bird for her aunt, she looks up to see a large flock of seagulls, squawking high overhead.
With the shop clerk in the back, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), mistakes Melanie for an employee and questions her about a pair of lovebirds for his sister Cathy’s birthday. “She’s only 11. I wouldn’t want a pair that were too demonstrative,” he says. “Doesn’t it make you feel awful, all these poor little creatures caged-up like this?” “Well, we can’t just let them fly around the shop,” replies Melanie, playing the role. When the real employee returns, Mitch admits he knew, all along, who Melanie was. “I think you’re a louse,” she says, angry at being played for a fool.
And yet, she writes down Brenner’s license plate number and purchases a pair of lovebirds to leave on his doorstep, along with an irate letter. When she learns he spends weekends with his mother and sister in Bodega Bay, she bundles up in an expensive fur coat, hops into her pewter-tinged 1954 Aston Martin and drives 60 miles up the Pacific Coast, just to deliver the birds for his sister’s birthday.
Melanie convinces the local postmaster to point out Mitch’s home, two miles across Bodega Bay. She hires a skiff at the Tides Boat Rental to ferry the birds to the Brenners’ dock, then jumps into the boat like she’s done this before. She cuts the engine and paddles to shore as Mitch disappears into the barn. With the nerve of a cat burglar, she enters the house and places the birds on an ottoman in the living room, with a birthday card to Cathy replacing the angry letter. Melanie returns to the boat, yanks the starter-cord and slowly heads back to Bodega Bay.
Twenty yards from the dock, a gull plummets from the sky and violently strikes her, just above her platinum-tinted hairline. Mitch, who’s found the lovebirds and driven around the bay to meet her, has seen the entire incident. “You all right?” he asks, scampering down to help her from the boat. “Yes, I think so. What do you suppose made it do that?” she asks, dazed. “That’s the damndest thing I ever saw,” he says. “It swooped down on you deliberately. Oh, you’re bleeding. Let’s take care of that.” “What happened?” asks the boat-rental skipper, back from lunch. “A gull hit her!” says a still bewildered Brenner.
