2. The Birds is a 1963 suspense/horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock,
loosely based on the 1952 story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It
depicts Bodega Bay, California, which is, suddenly and for
unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and
violent bird attacks over the course of a few days.
3. Novelist Evan Hunter based his screenplay upon the
1952 collection of short stories of the same name by
Daphne du Maurier - Hitchcock's third major film
based on the author's works (after Jamaica Inn
(1939) and Rebecca (1940)). In du Maurier's story, the
birds were attacking in the English countryside, rather
than in a small town north of San Francisco. It was
shot on location in the port town of Bodega Bay
(north of San Francisco) and in San Francisco itself.
4. The film's technical wizardry is extraordinary,
especially in the film's closing scene (a complex, trick
composite shot) - the special visual effects of Ub
Iwerks were nominated for an Academy Award (the
film's sole nomination), but the Oscar was lost to
Cleopatra (1963). Hundreds of birds (gulls, ravens,
and crows) were trained for use in some of the
scenes, while mechanical birds and animations were
employed for others.
5. Initially, critics were baffled when they attempted to
interpret the film on a literal level and measure it
against other typical disaster/horror films of its kind.
The typical Hitchcock MacGuffin was the question:
Why do the strange attacks occur? The main
inspiration for the film's bird attacks came from
mysterious, real-life avian deaths occurring in the
summer of 1961. Thousands of disoriented seagulls
suicidally flew into houses along the Monterey Bay
coast line, further south of San Francisco. Scientists at
LSU finally discovered that the deaths happened
because the birds had been poisoned by a nerve-
damaging toxin called domoic acid found in the
birds' natural diet of anchovies and squid (that had
both eaten plankton with concentrated levels of
domoic acid)..
6. Scientists discovered that toxin-making algae was
present in 79% of the plankton that the creatures ate.
The acid caused bird brain damage, or at the least,
created confusion, dizzyness and seizures. The acid
had possibly come from leaky domestic septic tanks
in the area rather than from suspected farm fertilizers
7. Iwerks was nominated for an Academy Award for
Best Special Effects. The winner that year was
Cleopatra. Tippi Hedren received the Golden Globe
Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1964,
sharing it with Ursula Andress and Elke Sommer. She
also received the Photoplay Award as Most
Promising Newcomer. The film ranked #1 of the top
10 foreign films selected by the Bengal Film
Journalists' Association Awards. Hitchcock also
received the Association's Director Award for the film
