That other gal in the movie was Mitch's ex and then in a day came along Melanie who all of a sudden had the hots for Mitch for no reason over his prank on her at the bird shop.
the the rest of the movie, Melanie and that ex girlfriend they started being friendly talking about Mitch or whatever.
Strangest subplot to put in an old 1960s horror movie
It might have worked in the book but didn't work at all in the movie.
shareThere really is no book... The screenplay is based on a short story which, as I recall it, has no similarity to the movie except that the birds are attacking people and the protagonist family is holed up in a house... and that's about it. The house is in a coastal region, but Cornwall rather than California. The ending of the story has the doors and barricaded wndows being chipped away by the larger birds, so the survivors are probably not going to live to run out of supplies.
shareIndeed, none of these characters were in the short story. One reason that screenwriter Joseph Stefano, who had adapted Robert Bloch's great novel Psycho into a greater movie, turned down The Birds is that the source was "a short story -- it was short, but it wasn't a story."
Hitchcock and new screenwriter Evan Hunter(The Blackboard Jungle) were thus really writing an original screenplay. Several ideas were tried out -- including a murder mystery swamped by the birds -- until we got what we got. Clearly, Psycho was an influence, what with Mitch Brenner dominated by his widowed mother. But new elements were introduced -- the idea of Mitch as "his mother's husband and his young sister's father" and the idea of women not being able to get past Mother Lydia to win Mitch for themselves.
Annie Hayworth had failed, but elected to live and work in Bodega Bay just to be near Mitch(it would seem.) Melanie arrives as something between a new friend and a new rival and voila...a triangle of sorts is created.
Hitchcock had other triangles around the time of The Birds:
North by Northwest : Cary Grant -- Eva Marie Saint -- James Mason (rather based on Cary Grant - Ingrid Bergman -- Claude Rains in Notorious.)
Marnie: Tippi Hedren -- Sean Connery -- Diane Baker (re-written from a book in which two MEN vied over Tippi).
Topaz: This one has THREE triangles, all entertwined:
Dany Robin -- Frederick Stafford -- Karin Dor
John Vernon -- Karin Dor -- Frederick Stafford
Frederick Stafford -- Dany Robin -- Michel Piccoli
..and the triangles are "solved" by killing two people in them, (Much as Annie ....SPOILER...dies in The Birds.)
---
One of the most psychologically cruel scenes in Hitchcock has to be the one where -- as Annie's house guest! -- Melanie takes a flirtatious call from Mitch right in front of Annie! This is not what a "traditional heroine" does, and Hitchcock in including it lays the groundwork, for the attacks of the birds ON Melanie (though, these birds are hardly "focused avengers" -- they attack Annie too, and actually kill her -- her isolation from Mitch helps make her vulnerable.)
One of the theories about all the family and romantic psychodrama in The Birds is that Hitchcock was trying to get the Best Director/Best Picture/Best Screenplay Oscars that had eluded him and only with a "psychologically deep" story could he get one. It didn't work, but it leaves us with an interesting movie -- half "Godzilla movie" (as Newsweek called it) and half perverse psychological study.
Michael Bay has been threatening to remake The Birds for over a decade -- I expect he can't get past all the psychodrama, which makes The Birds a very, very, special kind of Godzilla movie.
"Annie Hayworth had failed, but elected to live and work in Bodega Bay just to be near Mitch(it would seem.) Melanie arrives as something between a new friend and a new rival and voila...a triangle of sorts is created"
I'm not sure Annie stayed just to be near Mitch, she just seemed to together and self-confident to throw her life away on a hopeless passion (which might mean that Pleshette was a bit miscast). I always thought she was there because she liked the life of a schoolteacher in Bodega Bay, which BTW is a stunningly beautiful place, and not too far from civilization. As a teacher there, she had her own house overlooking the sea, she could dress down and use so little hairspray that her hair moved in a breeze, she had a steady job and a respectable place in the community, she had the intellectual challenge of running a one-room schoolhouse with multiple grades, she had her summers off, etc. Maybe she wouldn't mind if Mitch realized she was beautiful, maybe she was fine if he didn't.
In a way I like your Earth Mother Annie alternative. But take a look at the enquiring glance she gives at Mitch and Melanie returning from the sandhills at the time of Cathy's birthday party. She's keeping her eye on Mitch alright. Never mind about mulching the garden when Mitch is around.
shareWell, if some guy you valued was dating a spoiled, impulsive, slutty, fucked-up rich girl, wouldnt *you* at least look at them askance?
I have no idea if Annie's feelings towards Mitch at that point were love or liking or both, but I don't think that look was necessarily jealousy. Maybe it was protectiveness.
Ps: I believe I was going to use the phrase "Earth Mother", but didn't. Great minds think alike!
I get your point. But it's just that I want Annie to have those passions. Otherwise Suzanne Pleshette is miscast as you suggested earlier. She is so stunning in this despite having to play Miss Dowdy to Melanie's sophistication. I want to hear Annie's husky voice and feel it wasn't caused by smoking too many cigarettes.
shareWell for myself, I'd rather that Annie's passions had faded a bit by that point and that she was happy with her life as it was, because she'd have been so much happier that way! I want Suzanne Pleshette to be happy, everyone likes her! And really, that's how Annie always struck me, not lovelorn and wasting her life, because she was Suzanne Pleshette and as long as she lived she radiated good sense and a razor wit... so if Hitchcock wanted someone who was wasting her life in hopeless longing then she really was a bit of a miscast.
Perhaps that's something Hitchcock wanted, someone sensible and in control of her feelings, to be a sharp contrast with the impulsive and headstrong Melanie?
Hitchcock did tend to cast people against type at times. The Annie character is a very sympathetic one. She didn't deserve to become a spinster. And yet I actually like your idea of Annie as an independent woman despite my yearnings for Suzanne Pleshette to be sexy. That's a very nice appraisal you've given. Thanks.
shareAnd yet I actually like your idea of Annie as an independent woman despite my yearnings for Suzanne Pleshette to be sexy
---
Suzanne Pleshette WAS sexier than Tippi Hedren, IMHO...but as Suzanne herself later said "To Tippi, he gives a mink coat and heels. Me? A housecoat and wedgies."
One day as a joke -- evidently well received by Hitchcock himself -- Pleshette reported for work with a big bad blonde wig atop her head.
Well for myself, I'd rather that Annie's passions had faded a bit by that point and that she was happy with her life as it was, because she'd have been so much happier that way! I want Suzanne Pleshette to be happy, everyone likes her! And really, that's how Annie always struck me, not lovelorn and wasting her life, because she was Suzanne Pleshette and as long as she lived she radiated good sense and a razor wit... so if Hitchcock wanted someone who was wasting her life in hopeless longing then she really was a bit of a miscast.
---
Nice observations...the way Pleshette PLAYS Annie...honestly, to this fellah she seems to STILL have it all over Miss Frozen Prissy. Vocally, too (but hey, Tippi Hedren was certainly pretty.)
---
Perhaps that's something Hitchcock wanted, someone sensible and in control of her feelings, to be a sharp contrast with the impulsive and headstrong Melanie?
--
Maybe. Which would make her rejection by Mitch(and his Gothic Mother) more sensible. Maybe Annie "got over Mitch" and enjoyed the town away from that "anthill" San Francisco. Had the birds not intervened, maybe the right man -- or woman -- would have come along.
This "positive take" is belied, alas, but the scene in which "mean" Tippi takes a flirtatious call from Mitch with Annie RIGHT THERE and smoking away. Annie looks...hurt. Irony though: Tippi will get punished somewhat by the birds(badly pecked) but its Annie who gets killed.
Hitchcock told Truffaut that Annie was supposed to be attacked in the upstairs room, but he and writer Evan Hunter killed off Annie instead and gave Tippi the near fatal final attack.
It might have made for a better story if Hitchcock had included Annie in the siege of Lydia's house - imagine the tension with a love triangle going on during the seige! But I guess Hitch's desire to torment Tippi during that scene won out over his desire to increase the suspense!
I wonder how te original would have played out? My personal criticism of that scene has been that Melanie is panicked and useless, she could have picked up an end table and held a window secure, instead of leaving Mich to run from danger point to danger point, you know? Well Annie would have picked up a damn end table and held the fort, and told Melanie to do the same! It would have been a very different scene.
It might have made for a better story if Hitchcock had included Annie in the siege of Lydia's house - imagine the tension with a love triangle going on during the seige! I wonder how te original would have played out?
---
Well, evidently at least one draft of the screenplay DID have Annie in the house, and DID send her up to that room (to be spared, like Tippi? Or to die?) I don't know the outcome, but if Annie died(the logical outcome), they would cover the body with a blanket and make their escape with Tippi unharmed. If Annie was attacked but lived as Tippi does in the film...well, that car would be a little more crowded and the future even MORE uncertain. (Could Mitch "live with two wives" among the bird takeover?)
---
But I guess Hitch's desire to torment Tippi during that scene won out over his desire to increase the suspense!
---
Ha. Well, "love triangle" stuff would have practically disappeared once the birds were out to kill everybody, I suppose.
I've always found it interesting that in the next movie -- Marnie -- Hitchcock took the love triangle from the book (Connery's character competing with another MAN over Hedren) and got rid of the other man and instead inserted a woman for another triangle entirely.) But it was a WEIRD triangle -- Diane Baker WANTS Connery; Tippi Hedren does NOT want Connery.)
Cary Grant-Ingrid Bergman-Claude Rains in Notorious becomes Cary Grant-Eva Marie Saint-James Mason in North by Northwest, and there are differences: James Mason is better sexual competition with Grant(Eva DID love Mason before finding out about his villainy) and Mason perversely sends Eva to seduce Grant -- duty over love makes Mason a swine to so pimp out his own girlfriend, but then MASON gets jealous when he suspects that Eva digs Cary a bit too much.
CONT
My personal criticism of that scene has been that Melanie is panicked and useless, she could have picked up an end table and held a window secure, instead of leaving Mich to run from danger point to danger point, you know? Well Annie would have picked up a damn end table and held the fort, and told Melanie to do the same! It would have been a very different scene.
---
Absolutely. With the capable Annie in the room, they have one more fighter, and if Tippi found her own "macho," Mitch would have a lot more help to at least "batten down the hatches" until this attack ends(as they all do, for awhile.)
But I suppose Hitchcock was more interested in terror here -- these people are alone without help and ill-equipped to fight back. The women are all hysterical.
My favorite Hitchcock movies are the two right before The Birds: North by Northwest and Psycho. I feel that THOSE movies had characters who were tough and "cool" and suave(the men) and capable(the women with their jobs and their sexuality.) The characters in Psycho are quite cool and only get hysterical when (twice) they are being suddenly killed , or (in the fruit cellar) almost killed. Grant and Saint are cool, sexy together, and a great team on Rushmore at the end versus the bad guys.
...and then along comes this movie about one guy (Rod Taylor) stuck in a house with a crowd of useless hysterical women of all ages. I don't know what went wrong in Hitchcock's mind to approve these kinds of characters.
"Ha. Well, "love triangle" stuff would have practically disappeared once the birds were out to kill everybody, I suppose."
No, I think it's entirely possible that the two women would have felt competitive over Mitch as long as they weren't 100% panicked or despairing, when the birds attacked and Annie presumably got up and fought back at Mitch's side, that's the one thing that might have gotten Melanie off her ass and joining the fight! (As I've said before, Lydia was doing what was considered proper at the time, keeping the child quiet.)
Anyway, my big issue with "The Birds" has always been that it's about the destruction of Melanie Daniels and the Hitchcock Blonde, and what you're telling me about changes in the script makes me think that theme evolved gradually, perhaps as Hitchcock's feelings about Hedren changed. (It's why I've never loved the film, who wants to see a human who doesn't deserve it being destroyed!) But once the film became about the destruction of Melanie, Annie had to leave before the final battle, she would have been too much of a positive influence on both Mitch and Melanie, and would have taken the focus and drama away from Hedren.
The earlier draft would have had Mitch temporarily with "two wives", but at the finished end, he's got none, just three helpeless dependents.
...and then along comes this movie about one guy (Rod Taylor) stuck in a house with a crowd of useless hysterical women of all ages. I don't know what went wrong in Hitchcock's mind to approve these kinds of characters.
--
To be fair, the whole movie is pessimistic, even apocalyptic, in its tone, far more so than the escapist NbNW or even the gothic proto-slasher world of Psycho. In the end, humanity does not triumph over the birds. They leave town only at the birds' mercy when you think about it.
But then again, there is some hope I suppose in the reconciliation of Melanie and the mother character (cannot recall her name off the bat) at the end of the movie-- Melanie gains a mother (replacing the one who abandoned her) and the mother gains a daughter rather than losing a son. I once listened to an analysis of the film dealing with the Freudian themes along that line and it's made me want to go back and watch the movie just to re-evaluate it on those terms.
Here's the video, if you're curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgC2Y0DQEE0
No, I think it's entirely possible that the two women would have felt competitive over Mitch as long as they weren't 100% panicked or despairing, when the birds attacked and Annie presumably got up and fought back at Mitch's side, that's the one thing that might have gotten Melanie off her ass and joining the fight! (As I've said before, Lydia was doing what was considered proper at the time, keeping the child quiet.)
---
An interesting take, otter, which I had not considered before. If BOTH women were in the house with Mitch, there might indeed be at once more teamwork and more competition between the women, "complicating" the fight against the birds.
The more I think about this, the more I think that The Birds as we have it has a problem: if we are supposed to PREFER Tippi Hedren to Suzanne Pleshette both as the film's heroine and as a match for Mitch...it doesn't really work out that way. Personally, I'm more attracted to Pleshette, for looks, voice, and "integrity." One film later, Diane Baker was pitted against Hedren in Marnie, and written more "mean and villainous." That worked better.
CONT
Anyway, my big issue with "The Birds" has always been that it's about the destruction of Melanie Daniels and the Hitchcock Blonde, and what you're telling me about changes in the script makes me think that theme evolved gradually, perhaps as Hitchcock's feelings about Hedren changed.
--
Interesting points. What's famous now about The Birds is that it really had to be written "from the ground up" (like an original screenplay) and Hitchcock and his writer Evan Hunter kept throwing ideas in and then taking them out -- a murder mystery, the teacher as the protagonist, Annie in the upstairs room getting pecked instead of Hedren.
Perhaps Hitchcock DID want to punish Tippi Hedren for her resistance to him, but I think that got worse when she did Marnie.
---
(It's why I've never loved the film, who wants to see a human who doesn't deserve it being destroyed!)
---
Well, as poster Elizabeth Joester has added to the thread, The Birds is a very pessimistic film. Pretty much EVERYONE is being destroyed and the "open ended" ending pretty much suggested that things would get worse, not better. (Except for the "hope extended" to a happy relationship between Lydia and Melanie.)
There is a "take" on Hitchcock after North by Northwest that his mood darkened and that MANY women died horrible deaths or were hurt in his films(Psycho, The Birds, Topaz, especially Frenzy.) But then men died horrible deaths and were hurt , too(Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz.) Only Family Plot rather kept death to a minimum(one man, accidentally) and happiness to a maximum. It was Hitchcock's final film, and perhaps an attempt to "make up for all that pessimism and destruction."
CONT
But once the film became about the destruction of Melanie, Annie had to leave before the final battle, she would have been too much of a positive influence on both Mitch and Melanie, and would have taken the focus and drama away from Hedren.
--
Agreed. As I said, Hitchcock and writer Hunter sort of kept putting things in, and taking things out, in their screenplay for The Birds, and it must have become apparent that this movie had to have ONE final heroine/protagonist.
I've always found it very MOVING that we do not SEE Annie's sacrificial death. Kathy tells the story -- crying and sobbing all the way -- and we IMAGINE Annie going out there to help and being surrounded and "jumped" by the birds, her eyes pecked out in the process. (The Birds has to "lowball" the fact that these bird killings are very "icky" indeed -- eyes gouged out, multiple beak stabs, shock to the system, nothing too quick or painless.)
---
The earlier draft would have had Mitch temporarily with "two wives",
---
Unworkable. Hollywood usually killed off one part of a triangle to clear the decks for the end.(For some reason, Shirley MacLaine dying so Martha Hyer can have Frank Sinatra in Some Came Running just came to mind -- and Hyer seemed like an unfair winner.)
--
but at the finished end, he's got none, just three helpless dependents.
--
I think we've both had to be a bit tough on how Mitch is stuck with three women who can't/won't help(Melanie, most possible to help, is now a physical wounded specimen.) Its not very feminist, but it fits the story. Plus, remember: Mitch is a real jerk in the first act, a real arrogant punk. He sort of gets what he deserves. Responsibility on an impossible scale.
CONT
I think the ex-girlfriend, Annie, was keen to get to know Melanie so that she could get information on Mitch. Annie may have been pretty confident that even Melanie would find it difficult dragging away Mitch from under his mother hen's wings. So she was willing to play host to Melanie to keep an eye on the matter. I think Annie was always waiting in the wings to get any information on Mitch. She took a job as the Bodega Bay schoolteacher maybe so she could hear what Cathy would say about her life at home. Therefore getting plenty of opportunity to hear about Mitch that way. San Francisco was too much of a metropolis where she couldn't get information but in small town Bodega she could keep tabs on Mitch so much better.
shareIf Annie was around, I wouldn't even notice that weirdo Melanie. Annie was smart and sexy as hell. Melanie was just sterile looking, with no personality.
shareI second that emotion.
shareThird.
share...and then along comes this movie about one guy (Rod Taylor) stuck in a house with a crowd of useless hysterical women of all ages. I don't know what went wrong in Hitchcock's mind to approve these kinds of characters.
--
To be fair, the whole movie is pessimistic, even apocalyptic, in its tone, far more so than the escapist NbNW or even the gothic proto-slasher world of Psycho. In the end, humanity does not triumph over the birds. They leave town only at the birds' mercy when you think about it.
---
All true. As I referenced up-thread, Hitchcock scholars noted that the old guy REALLY seemed to go pessimistic after the "happy ending" of North by Northwest. The killer is captured in Psycho, but the loved ones of Marion (and, I suppose, Arbogast) will be forever haunted by what happened to the murder victims. The Birds posits a world at end (there would be no WAY to stop the destruction the birds could wreak on power grids and food supply.) Marnie has a "tentative happy ending" but a very damaged main character and a rather troubled hero. Torn Curtain has a "happy ending"(lovers united and saved for marriage) but getting there is no fun at all. Etc, etc (Topaz, Frenzy) until Family Plot put a smiley face on the Hitchcock canon at the end.
---
CONT
But then again, there is some hope I suppose in the reconciliation of Melanie and the mother character (cannot recall her name off the bat) at the end of the movie-- Melanie gains a mother (replacing the one who abandoned her) and the mother gains a daughter rather than losing a son.
---
Amidst all the end-of-the-world doom at the end of The Birds, that is EXACTLY what is communicated, yes? It seems a bit disproportionate that Bodega Bay had to be sacrificed so that Melanie could get a mother and Lydia a daughter. I suppose if -- by chance -- the birds ended their war and calmed down forever, the Brenners would be a happy family -- with Mitch and Melanie married -- but the tone of the movie's end suggests they won't get the chance.
---
CONT
I once listened to an analysis of the film dealing with the Freudian themes along that line and it's made me want to go back and watch the movie just to re-evaluate it on those terms.
Here's the video, if you're curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgC2Y0DQEE0
--
I will take a look.
I suppose it should be mentioned that Hollywood in general -- and Hitchcock in particular -- were on a big Freudian kick in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. It was a "thing" and many Hollywood denizens were in therapy. I don't think Hitchcock was in therapy , but he was surrounded by people who WERE(Psycho screenwriter Joe Stefano for one) and he read books and saw movies on Freudian principles.
We have psychiatrists coming on screen to analyze the broken people in The Wrong Man, Vertigo, and Psycho. Coming right after Psycho, there is no psychiatrist in The Birds, but there is psychiatric analysis all through the movie. Plus garden-variety family psychodrama: in the Brenner household with the father dead, Mitch has become his mother's husband and his sister's father! (This happens a lot in real life, a lot of fathers leave or die.)
In interviews for The Birds, Hitchcock rather tried to "sell out" his Psycho characters as less important than his Birds characters. Everybody in the second half of Psycho were "mere figures," said Hitchcock, while all the characters in The Birds were more deep and developed.
Wrong. Poor guy. I'm pretty sure that Hitchcock was pushing pretty hard for the Oscars he never could get by trying to make things so "serious" in The Birds. But at the end of the day, the characters in Psycho -- if only because of the horror surrounding them -- were all more interesting than the characters in The Birds. Psycho had a psycho(interesting), a sexy but sad woman(interesting), a tough wise cracking private eye(interesting) and the other characters conveyed complex emotion, too. (The sister and the boyfriend of Marion find their lives upended forever.)
Freud was definitely a hot item, whether the filmmakers in question really understood his theories or not. I tend to like it best when the Freudian themes are more subdued in their presentation, as in The Birds, as compared to more overt, in-your-face Freudian stories like Spellbound. My favorite pop Freudian movie is probably Val Lewton's Cat People-- such a deliciously dark and tragic film that is.
I love Hitchcock, but sometimes he validates that oft-discussed notion that the artist can never fully understand their own work. The characters in Psycho come across as very authentic and human, even less captivating figures like Lila or Sam. I actually think Vera Miles does as good as could be done with Lila-- I feel her desperation keenly.
I do think the characters in The Birds are interesting in their own way, especially Melanie Daniels. She has an oddness to her that I really like and her willfulness makes it tragic when she becomes broken in the end.