All About 'The Birds'

This is one of the special features on the DVD of The Birds, and the only one up for review. It consists of interviews(recent ones, and one or two from back then), clips from the movie(some of them ironically edited; note that this documentary contains spoilers), footage from the time(publicity-related, mostly), storyboards and excerpts of the script. And yes, this really has everything you could want to know about the flick... I certainly wasn't left with any unanswered questions. You'll find out about the FX(including the so-called sodium process, that they borrowed from Disney, and the extraordinary matte paintings... this was decades before CGI, and you had to be truly creative, and figure out solutions to the problems and limitations that you faced), the controlled lighting for closeups, what poor Hedren had to put up with(did you know she got glass on her face from the phone booth bit? And that she had birds attached to her, and had them thrown directly at her? You can sense her pain when she talks about it, three and a half decades later; good thing film is forever), the use of sound and music, the measures taken to protect the avian creatures and they go into what they might symbolize(such as the chaos and unpredictable of our world, and of ourselves). It isn't boring, either. The 80 minutes are full of information and are tightly cut. We get impersonations of Hitchcock, and anecdotes(none of his priceless sardonic wit, though... oh well, can't have it all). The opening of this is intense and scary... fitting considering its subject. There is disturbing content and violence in this. I recommend this to any fan of the motion picture itself. 8/10

All About The Birds (2000)

*** (out of 4)

Pretty good documentary covering the making of Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS. Pat Hitchcock, production designer Robert Boyle, screenwriter Evan Hunter, Hitchcock collaborator Hilton Green, make-up artist Howard Smit, Peter Bogdanovich, Tippi Hedren, Robert Wood, Rod Taylor and Veronica Cartwright are interviewed about their experience on the film. I've never been a major fan of THE BIRDS but I still found this documentary to be entertaining. This might upset fans but I found the opening sequence to this documentary much more entertaining than anything in the actual film. With that being said, fans of the film are really going to enjoy this as it really does give you a great idea of all the trouble they had to go through to make the movie. We get stories from the cast about how they were hired, we hear about how blue screens were used to match up the effects and then there's talk about the SPCA being on the set at all times (but this didn't prevent many birds from being injured or killed). There's a funny story from Taylor about one raven that was constantly trying to come after him and we hear about the treadmill used during the famous school yard chase. One of the more interesting items is the screen test by Hedren and it includes a couple shots with Martin Balsam who was originally planned as the lead. There's also discussion about the alternate ending as well as a comedy scene that was shot but taken out of the film. Overall, this is an entertaining look at the making of the film and we also get a brief audio interview with Hitchcock that was done with Bogdanovich.

This doc appears in the bonus materials section of the Birds DVD and provides quite a bit of insite into the making of the birds. The special effects for the day were cutting edge and it was interesting to note the relationships between the actors, the director and the birds. If you are a fan of the master, take an hour or so to view this.