For me, it is the best dramatic scene in the movie. After a few too many "angst-ridden scenes" largely focused on women(Melanie, Lydia, Annie, Kathy)...here the movie "opens" up to bring in a full load of women AND men to "get the town focused" on just what the hell seems to be going on here.
There is Hitchcockian suspense at foot --- a lot of people don't believe Melanie's contention that the birds are deadly and attacking schoolkids. The conveniently-there "bird lady"(who makes sense; its a coastal town great for birdwatching) is Melanie's main disbeliever -- and the most dangerous one because she's an expert.
But Melanie has a woman ON her side, and that's dangerous, too: its the ever-more-panicky mother, whose manic behavior seems most unseemly with her two children there(one wonders about the stability of this family.)
Meanwhile, the great MEN: grizzled fisherman Sebastian Sholes(great name!), whose mumbled, staccato dialogue is very modern and manly (I love how he stops mid-sentence to turn down a cup of coffee offer from the waitress and just keeps talking); the scotch-and-soda drinking travelling businessman("Get guns and shoot them all off the face of the earth") who goes from grim to funny ("I hope you folks work this out!") The drunk ("Its the end of the world!" You got that right, buddy. He also has a good Biblical quote about God feeding birds.)
Eventually Rod Taylor's Mitch enters with the local sheriff, who STILL refuses to believe that the birds are deadlysays the sheriff of a male victim whose eyes were pecked out "was probably killed by a burglar.") The suspense continues. Mitch reaches out to his fellow Macho Male(Sebastian Sholes) to try to enlist him in the Bird War. ("I dunno, Mitch," mumbles Sholes, non-committal.)
And then the suspense finally ends. The birds show up and start attacking the entire town.
Its rather satisfying really. You expect Tippi to say "See, I told you so! Now what do you think?"
Great scene. My one regret: all these characters leave the movie after this scene, and we're back to being stuck with Mitch and the Girls.
PS. Hitchcock scholar Camille Paglia writes of this scene that Hitchcock's various camera angles and cuts "carve and slice screen space like slabs of roast beef."
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