Bill Sherman has kind words for the first couple of entries in The 13 Days of Halloween (yes, I will continue to put that phrase in bold; no, I don’t think it’s over the top at all, but thank you for asking). Mixed among them is Bill’s assertion that The Birds, which I peg as the Master’s masterpiece, falls short of the Holy Hitchcock Trinity (Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho–also known as Hitch’s “O” period) because of the lack of great performances. I really meant to comment on this in my post on the film, but it just didn’t fit structurally: I like the fact that the characters are annoying, and played annoyingly. You’ve got a heroine who gallavants around Europe spending Daddy’s money, then blows an entire weekend in order to show up some hot guy who made her look stupid–she’s the early-’60s equivalent of Paris Hilton. You’ve got a hero who combines smugness and arrogance with being an incurable mama’s boy. You’ve got mama herself, who’s only slightly less cloying than Mrs. Bates. (Okay, so Suzanne Pleshette’s character isn’t so bad, but she has the unfair advantage of a voice that could melt butter.) And all these characters spend the bulk of their screen time having mannered, formal, phony conversations and quarrels with one another. As I said in my essay on the use of sound in the film, the dialogue becomes so irritating that you end up being grateful for the intrusion of the birds, who are all but less noisy by comparison.
And that’s when Hitch has got you. He’s enmeshed you in a conflict between people who are difficult to like–you know, sort of like real people–and birds who, by the end of the film, are impossible not to loathe. How dull a film this would be if it starred the usual assortment of the troubled-but-good, the brave-under-pressure–the cliched stock in trade of the people-under-siege film. Give me Tippi, Rod, and Jessica anyday, man. They’re… unpleasant, and that’s why I care.
(PS: I actually like Rod Taylor a lot. I think he’s sort of a precursor to Mel Gibson, who I also enjoy–particularly in Signs, a film not coincidentally modeled after Hitchock generally and The Birds particularly. And you’ll have a hard time getting me to complain about having to watch Tippi Hedren in a movie, too.)