The Birds

Considered Hitchcock's last great film The Birds tells a troubling story of all the birds going crazy, flocking together, and attacking humans.

As the movie begins Melanie Davis played by Tippi Hendren enters a pet store to pick up a bird she has ordered. As she waits a man mistakes her for a store employee and she plays along. Eventually it is determined she is not telling the truth and he and she both leave without their birds.

On a lark she determines to deliver his birds to him, and when a neighbor informs he has gone to Bodega Bay for the weekend she decides to deliver them there. We see her take a set of lovebirds to him, even crossing the bay in a rented skiff to surprise him. When he discovers her gift he races on the coast road and is there waiting for Melanie as she passes back across the lake. As she pulls up to the dock a gull attacks her leaving a cut on her head.

This is just the beginning of some very scary events.

The cast is strong. Jessica Tandy plays Lydia Brenner, the young man Mitch's mother, for much of the movie we see a remnant from Psycho, a domineering mother but by movie's end she is a more sympathetic character.

Hendren is strong in her role but certainly not as captivating as her forebears Grace Kelly, Kim Novak and Janet Leigh. Susanne Pleshette plays Annie, the schoolteacher in the village who as a former flame of Mitch offers friendship to Melanie as she decides if she is attracted to Mitch or not.

This is a good movie but it certainly suffers in comparison to many of the Hitchcock movies I have seen and enjoyed, the plot is less about the suspense between human relationships and more about the supernatural. For me that makes the movie solid but certainly not as successful as some of the earlier movies.

To Catch a Thief

This 1955 Hitchcock movie stars Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. In the movie Grant plays John Robie, a man who had earlier in life been known as The Cat and was the most famous Cat Burglar in France. In World War II both he and his crime compatriots had been active members of the French resistance leading to parole for them.

As the movie starts a wave of burglaries reminiscent of the style of Robie have been occuring and suspicion is quickly cast on him. Realizing the only way he can prove his innocence is to capture the true thief he begins just that.

Grace Kelly plays Francie Stevens a woman visiting the French Riveria with her Mother and who is " husband hunting" as Robie puts it.

This is a good movie and any movie with Kelly in it will always have that going for it. She might well be the prettiest woman ever in film. That said, compared against most other Hitchcock movies this one pales a bit.

The scenery in the Riveria is wonderful, Kelly is strong but Grant seems too old to be a real love interest for Kelly, and the movie's plot is not confusing in a normal twist and turn Hitchcock way but more confusing for the sake of being confusing.

This movie does not get a high rating.

Dial M For Murder

Alfred Hitchcock. Movies like Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest are some of the greatest movies you will ever see. I had never seen Dial M for Murder. Starring Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, and Robert Cummings as a triangle gone wrong.

Milland plays Tony Wendice a tennis player who has met with moderate success but perhaps not enough to placate his rich wife played by Grace Kelly. She would like him to stay home and have a real job. The movie is told backwards at times. We learn that Margot Wendice has been having an affair with mystery writer Mark Halliday who is played by Robert Cummings.

Being a Hitchcock movie we expect lots of twists. The difference in this is that we know the twist. Tony wants to kill his wife. He sets this up. When this fails he makes adjustments on the fly. The pieces fit together, until they don't.

I watched this movie with my son. He appreciated the movie as well. The twists and turns of a good mystery was a new experience for him. No one will ever convince me that a Hitchcock movie without gore, language and other modern movie magic is not better than alnything you would see today.

After watching this with my son I hope he agrees.