The Birds

BECAUSE THEY’RE BITCHES?

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds is based less on Daphne du Maurier’s famous short story than on a Santa Cruz newspaper’s reportage about sea birds unaccountably terrorizing coastal communities by swooping down into doors, windows, telephone booths, cars and pecking at and shitting on the residents. Intrigued by the timely coincidences, Hitch reved up to make a cautionary tale about our antipathy towards the natural order, but, as the central object of the birds’ disaffection, ‘Tippi’ Hedren, yet another Grace Kelly stand-in, is such an unnatural mink-clad presence you know the bitch, with her heels on throughout, is in for it because not only does she fib (and continues to do in Marnie), she’s also photographed in VanityVision. Due to the subversive way Hitch directs her and the other bitches—Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Veronica Cartwright (still on her Children’s Hour crying jag) and the accusatory hags in the restaurant—we’re far less involved with their plight of self-protection than we are in the hidden signals being transmitted, which are a whole lot more entertaining than the birds’ frenzied onslaughts. In green cargo pants and one of the best creamy white sweaters ever seen on screen throughout the 60s, Rod Taylor is once more the hunky hero. The movie’s atmospheric “design” is said to be have been suggested by Edward Munch’s “The Scream,” and the very last scene captures a becalmed madness more unsettling than anything the special effects wizards throw at us.

Much more psychological and emotional trouble during the making of Marnie than what’s reflected on screen, as Hitchcock supposedly became obsessed with ‘Tippi’ and, if we believe her side, the poor wench had no option but to chew on her turmoil with a torturously bad performance. Years later, we still don’t feel much sympathy for her. In a postscript to her performance, she said in a 2013 New York press interview, “Apparently I was up for a nomination for Marnie, and Hitchcock killed it.” If he did veto expenditures for an Oscar campaign, it was justifiable intervention because ‘Tippi’ was never going to be a nominee, except for “worst,” but to self-aggrandize fantasies decades later—including bemoaning he nixed her opportunity to make the bummers Bedtime Story, Mirage and Fahrenheit 451 even more egregious—imply the casting as fibber in The Birds and liar/thief in Marnie mirror her own folie. More recently on Twitter, she claims to have walked away and not looked back on the alleged multiple harassments and nervous breakdown she’s endured, hoping we’re oblivious to her two memoirs, countless interviews, press articles and guest appearances at film symposiums. The infamous auteur theory pops up again: In November, 2021, her granddaughter Dakota Johnson repeats to The Hollywood Reporter the travails and alleged sexual assault ‘Tippi’ claims at the hands of Hitch. What are we to make of this regurgitation—“He ruined my Granny’s career!”—without residuals? #MeToo victimization is recompense of last resort. Marnie did more than just demolish the auteur theory—terminology pusher Andrew Sarris sounded and his devotees still sound rattlepated attempting to excuse lazy repetition—it confirmed ‘Tippi’ was fixating as an insufferably lousy actress who would become an insufferable recidivist. The movie’s two saving graces are Diane Baker planting that congratulatory kiss on newlywed Sean Connery and his comment to ‘Tippi’ as she presents herself to him on their wedding night in a buttoned-up, full-length nightgown as straitjacket. If Hitch is guilty of psycho sabotage, so is Edith Head.

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ralphbenner@nowreviewing.com