MovieChat Forums > The Birds (1963) Discussion > Original story

Original story

posted 9 years ago by LeonardPine
3 replies | jump to latest

Read the original story the other day by Daphne De Maurier. Very impressed with it and it manages to be a scary and riveting read.

It's set on the English coast although we hear of what's happening elsewhere on the affected family's radio.

As it is it would have made a thrilling film.

Much as I like Hitch's film, I find it slow and bloated.

Was it a millionaire who said "Imagine no possessions"?

[–] bastasch8647 9 years ago

Amen. The short story is chilling, gripping, and it poetically captures the hardness of winter and uses it to backlight the possible demise of humanity. Hitch turned it into a grotesque dysfunctional family melodrama. And the birds were not scary, although they could have been had DuMaurier's story been filmed as written.

[–] puirt-a-beul 8 years ago

Much as I like Hitch's film, I find it slow and bloated.

I have to agree, Leonard. The "ancient nature" tone adds a great deal to du Maurier's story; Hitchcock's film transplanting it to a California fishing village, even one with a rustic quality to it, casts the story somewhat adrift. There's a lot I admire about what Hitchcock does in this (I've just seen the film for the first time), but for me the horror is actually diminished by making it less explicable.

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[–] PrometheusTree64 8 years ago

De Maurier's short story is wonderful but it's essentially a mood piece with a narrative that's vague.

I'm not always fond of Hollywood's pattern of changing an original story, but I though what Hitchcock did with it worked very well.

I'm not sure how you could film De Maurier's tale except maybe as a TWLIGHT ZONE episode.

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