nt of Janet Leigh's shower stabbing in "Psycho."One of my favorite things about "The Birds" is the ending. It doesn't offer an explanation, and it doesn't offer a way out. Instead, it shows birds covering almost everything in sight. Originally, Hitchcock wanted the last shot to be of the Golden Gate Bridge covered in birds, but it didn't work out. Cleverly, this is the only of his films that don't end with the words, "The End." He wanted to suggest endless terror, and indeed the closing shots of the movie are potent.Tippi Hedren, who starred as a kleptomaniac in Hitchcock's "Marnie" the year after "The Birds" was released, is very good as Melanie. Rod Taylor does well with his character, one of the few leading men in a Hitchcock film who isn't given the hero treatment, and Suzanne Pleshette is noteworthy as the fairly mysterious Annie. But I found myself focusing more on Jessica Tandy as Lydia. Her character was the most complex, and she gives the best performance in the film as the mother who wants her son to be happy but is struggling with the unresolved abandonment issues deriving from her husband's death. Veronica Cartwright is a bit uneven as Cathy, but becomes more believable towards the end.Many people assumed that a movie about killer birds couldn't be as satisfying a thriller as such (then) recent Hitchcock fare as "Vertigo," "North by Northwest," and "Psycho." But quite on the contrary, he makes the danger of the situation palpable from the start, and builds to an even more tense and unresolved ending that is riveting. The script, especially the setting, is most commendable for never making suspension of disbelief necessary, as it would be if reasoning behind the bird's behavior had been thrown in (such as the end of "Psycho," where the psychologist's monologue, which didn't diminish the film, was still unnecessary). One could argue that if you watch a movie about homicidal birds, you have to suspend your disbelief, but such p...
