Herein, Tippi Hedren plays a practical joker who finds out, of course, that life is no joke.  The birds in Bodega Bay have gone insane, psychopathic, vicious.  Relationship problems pale in significance when the avian attacks begin.  One wonders why Tippi and Rod Taylor spend as much time outdoors as they do.

The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 offering, is a character-driven drama (consider the two women, Lydia and Annie, who fear abandonment) before the bird business heats up. . . Has the film aged well?  Sure.  The special effects no longer impress, if they ever did, but images and scene set-ups are still sobering and vivid.  The dead man at the farm, the gathering of crows on the playground jungle gym, the gasoline fire on Main Street—all brilliant.  In spite of a lot of poor acting—thank Heaven for Jessica Tandy—The Birds is an almost-great horror flick.

Cover of The Birds (Collector’s Edition)