The Birds of Bodega

I neglected to tell you that our family attended a wedding in early June, in Bodega Bay.

Bodega Bay, of course, is the site where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds. We'd been looking forward to seeing the bay because of that; and in fact, locals could point out to us the major landmarks, such as the diner where Tippie Hedron got stuck in the phone booth, and where Suzanne Pleschette (or was it Tippie again?) foolishly took all her schoolkids out of the reletively protected building and made them run down the street and get pecked a lot.

(I loved Tippie, though. No matter what she was up to - hiring a little motor boat to play a trick on a guy, driving a ratty ol' pickup truck, or discovering dead bodies - she always, always knew where her purse was. The mark of a truly self-possessed woman.)

I first saw this movie when I was eight, on a little television, with commercial interruptions, during some afternoon movie show. And still, that movie was so horrifying to me, I watched most of it while crouching behind the living room couch!

Fast-forward to Bunny's first viewing. She's ten, and this time it's being shown on a big-screen TV. During the scene with the school children running down the street, I looked around - no Bunny. She'd crawled behind the couch and was watching the movie from there. I hadn't told her my story or anything.

How did you handle your first viewing of The Birds?

Comments

[Anthony]

There's a mid-period X-Files episode where Skinner, having made a devil's bargain with Cancer Man (to, naturally, save Scully from whatever iteration of the mysterious cancer she was suffering from because of her abduction) is sent to do some covert clean-up work for CSM. The climactic part of the show was a group of school kids being attacked by a horde of...you guessed it...killer bees. Watching it, I thought, "well, the Birds and the Bees, how conceptual of Chris Carter..."
By the time I saw The Birds it had lost most of its shock value (and it looks terrible on regular pan and scan TV anyways).
I nominate "Cloverfield" director Matt Reeves for a shining, very digital "reimagining" of The Birds, this time shot entirely from the perspective of the birds themsevles. Throw in Lindsey Lohan getting pecked to death and perhaps Sigourney Weaver screaming "get away from her, you FINCH" and the multiplxes will be jammed!
Isn't it interesting how some towns can become famous or infamous from a movie and others just go on like business as usual? Bodega Bay (CA)and the Maine town which housed "Peyton Place" ended up embracing their cinematic notoriety (though, ironically, both were initially less-than-thrilled to have been subjected to a Hollywood invasion), while Modesto CA ("Water Wealth Contentment Health") seems utterly apathetic that their very own wunderkind George Lucas put them on the map with "American Graffiti." Me personally, I blame Jar-Jar Binks...

[uneasy rhetoric]

I don't think I really watched The Birds until I was at least 13 or 14. By then I would have been a detached and mildly depressed and angry new teenager, so nothing would have scared me much. Still, it's a great movie to watch and the scenes in the house give me the creeps, even after several watchings.

I also blame Jar-Jar Binks for stealing my eight bucks, hours of my life, crime, and global warming.

[Your mother]

Actually the Rebecca deMaurier short story scared me more than the movie. At any rate, I've always been careful watching them gather in groups.

[Sue]

Is your mother carefully watching the movie "The Birds" in groups of other people? I prefer to think that she is always carefully watching birds as they gather together in groups, preparing to attack again!

[pam]

My mother has never trusted large groups of birds since the movie (or the short story, I guess). Neither have I!

[bunny]

Actually Mom, you had told me. But I didn't know it was that movie, and I only did it because it seemed like a particularly good thing to do. Ugh so much ketchup and squawking I physically had a headache for the rest of the day. Curse Dad's surround sound system!

[Stephanie]

I believe my parents took me to see it in the theatre. I wound up sitting in my father's lap with his hat over my face, so I've never seen the movie. Don't really intend to either. I haven't seen Psycho either.

[rhea]

The name 'Bodega Bay' has haunted me for years. I love how Tippi's hair comes more and more undone as the she gets into more danger.