History Film / TheBirds

** A bunch of people, including police, perform some first aid on a man while ignoring the gap pump gushing out fuel like a firehose onto the street.

** Our heroes keep passing up opportunities to simply drive out of town with weak justifications.

* NonIdleRich: Mitch is surprised to learn that the wealthy socialite Melanie has a job. In fact, she has a job, studies at Berkley, and does charity work. She explains that she got fed up with not having any purpose.

* NothingIsScarier: A classic example. the movie never once establishes ''why'' the birds are attacking. This only serves to make it prime ParanoiaFuel; imagine, one day ''every single flighted bird in the world'' goes on what can only be described as a homicidal rampage and ''nobody knows why''.

* PrettyInMink: Melanie is a beautiful and high class lady who wears a fur coat for much of the film. Her outfits were designed by famed costumer Edith Head.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: A mother dining in the cafe with her two children overhears Melanie explain about what happened at the school and tries to hitch a ride with another diner patron. Unfortunately for her, the birds attack again and her would-be driver picks a really bad time to light a cigar.

* GreenEyedMonster: Though she's completely forthright about her feelings and even encourages Melanie to to whatever she feels is right, Annie can't help but be jealous about Mitch's interest in Melanie. This is most pronounced when she grimaces when Melanie finally accepts Mitch's invitation to Cathy's party.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Annie is found lying on her back with her legs splayed--as if she's been raped.
** The attack in the attic can also have shades of this, some points looking like the birds are holding Melanie down as they peck different parts of her body as well as her gasping in pain.
* TheDogBitesBack: The trailer has Hitchcock go on about the ways mankind has made use of birds before he hears a cacophony of flapping wings and screeches. It seems to imply the birds are behaving the way they do to get back at humans for the exploitation of their kind and countless birds that have been killed throughout history, though it's not an interpretation the movie itself dwells on.

** No one makes any effort to shield themselves from bird attacks, like throwing a quilt over their head. Cathy is the only person who thinks of wearing extra layers, she's only seen doing this in the very last scene of the film.

* ItCanThink: The birds prove themselves to be terrifyingly adept at planning and sneak attacks, most notably when they lie in wait for the kids to leave the school.

* LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine: Playful blonde socialite Melanie is Light, no-nonsense brunette schoolteacher Annie is Dark.

* PrettyInMink: Melanie dons a fur coat for much of the film.

* BrokenBird: Pun aside [[spoiler: Melanie is reduced to a catatonic wreck after getting attacked by birds in the attic]]. It was a similar [[CreatorBreakdown situation for her actress]] in real life too.

%%* KillAllHumans: Seems to be the birds' goal.%%Don't speculate.
* LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine: [[{{Pun}} Flighty]] blonde socialite Melanie is Light, no-nonsense brunette schoolteacher Annie is Dark.
* TheLostLenore: Gender-inverted. The true cause of Lydia's reserved attitude for much of the film stems from how much she's been struggling to move on from her husband's passing, and how she feels inadequate to fill the void in the family's lives left by him on her own.
* MacGuffin: The love birds Melanie takes up to Bodega Bay, though they may well have something to do with the bird attacks.
%%* MamaBear: Lydia, to Mitch.

%%* MommasBoy: Mitch and Lydia.
* NoEnding:
** [[spoiler:The birds enter their resting phase and allow the characters to leave the besieged house. You never find why they started, or if they'll start attacking again.]]
** An expanded ending was in the planning stages, with two additional scenes that were never filmed, but it was just as open to interpretation. [[spoiler:After a drive through the town, which is now in ruins and has bodies of the unlucky locals lying in its streets, the characters head down to San Francisco... where they find the Golden Gate Bridge completely covered in birds, silently watching them]].
** The book explains that [[spoiler:the attack patterns are somehow connected to the tides, meaning that there are guaranteed breaks when one can go outside to get food and rebuild defenses. The birds of prey do join in, but the narrator makes plans to attach barbed wire to the windows and chimney to keep them from getting in.]] Strangely, despite the overall situation seeming to be much more grave in the book than in the adaptation ([[spoiler:Nat and his family are possibly the only survivors '''in all of Europe''', if not the whole planet, and the military intervention suggested in the movie is shown to fail miserably in the book]]) and leading up to essentially the same type of NoEnding, the novella still manages to give a more optimistic taste than the movie does.
* NonIdleRich: Mitch is surprised to learn that Melanie has a job. In fact, she works a job, studies at Berkley, and does charity work. She explains that she got fed up with not having any purpose.

* StupidScientist: At one point the main characters meet Mrs Bundy, an ornithologist, who denies that the birds of various species are going out of their way to attack humans. She is seen with the other diner patrons after the first truly large-scale attack. She doesn't say anything, instead simply huddling against a wall and glancing over her shoulder. It's pretty obvious that she's realized how wrong she was.

* WhamShot: Of the man's [[EyeScream eyes pecked out]].

* ForTheEvulz: Different, random groups of birds start swarming and killing the populace of Bodega Bay. No reason or explanation is given as to why they attack. They just do it. Though Hitchock himself in the trailer for the film makes the implications that the real reason they're attacking is [[TheDogBitesBack to get revenge on humanity]] for millennia of abusing and killing their kind.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Melanie thinks she's the plucky heroine of a frothy RomanticComedy, with her fondness for playing pranks and her StalkerWithACrush treatment of Mitch. Once the HalfwayPlotSwitch happens, she realizes this isn't the case anymore.

* BalloonBurstingBird: The film involves said avians attacking a little girl's birthday party. During the assault, the birds pop a number of balloons.

%%* HarmfulToMinors: The school scene, among others.

%%* HotTeacher: Annie, who was once a lover of Mitch's

* IdiotBall: This could easily be called ''Idiot Ball: The Movie.'' Laying aside the (somewhat) understandable skepticism that the birds are launching coordinated attacks, practically everybody in this movie spends time running serious yardage with the idiot ball by foregoing even basic self-preservation. Checking out suspicious noises without letting anybody else know, several people tending to first aid for a bird peck without taking the simple precaution of shutting off a gas pump, and multiple instances of the good old standard horror tactic, splitting up. How any of the main characters survived their own childhoods is a mystery.
* IdleRich: Melanie, as the daughter of a newspaper owner, doesn't really need a job and spends most of her time goofing off.

** Why the birds attacked and whether it has anything to with the two birds Melanie bought at the start is never addressed.
** Why the chickens wouldn't eat is never explained.

* SpeciesTitle: An AntagonistTitle about a murder of various birds.

* DaylightHorror: Most of the bird attacks happen during the day.

* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: Mitch's Birthday is the day the birds attack in full.

''The Birds'' is a 1963 suspense/horror film directed by Creator/AlfredHitchcock, [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] the short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. The film's innovative special effects, soundtrack, and apocalyptic theme influenced later "[[GaiasVengeance revenge of nature]]" disaster films.

Unlike most other films of its era, ''The Birds'' does not have a music score or an ending in the conventional sense. The soundtrack was supervised by Music/BernardHerrmann; bird cries and wingflaps were played on an expanded Trautonium (called the Mixtur Trautonium) by Oskar Sala, assisted by German composer Remi Gassmann.

Melanie Daniels (Creator/TippiHedren) is a young UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco socialite. She decides to follow lawyer Mitch Brenner (Creator/RodTaylor) to his home in Bodega Bay, California. She apparently picks the wrong time to visit. The birds of Bodega Bay are becoming increasingly aggressive and soon every human being around comes under attack, with Annie Hayworth (Creator/SuzannePleshette), a close friend of the Brenners, becoming one of the early casualties.

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: It starts off feeling like a romantic comedy, and takes its time getting to the real point.

* {{Macguffin}}: The love birds Melanie takes up to Bodega Bay, though they may well have something to do with the bird attacks.
* MalignantPlotTumor: Romance happens. Then lots and lots and ''lots'' of angry birds happen.

!! This Movie Contains Examples Of:
* AbsurdlyElderlyMother: If the character's ages are the same as their actors, 54-year old Lydia has a 33 year old son and a 14-year old daughter. Which is actually completely possible, but the vast age difference between the siblings (plus Lydia looking much older than 54, as well as Cathy actually being younger than her actress) has led to considerable speculation that Cathy is actually Mitch's daughter.

* AbsurdlyElderlyMother: If the character's ages are the same as their actors, 54-year old Lydia has a 33 year old son and a 14-year old daughter. Which is actually completely possible, but the vast age difference between the siblings (plus Lydia looking much older than 54, as well as Cathy actually being younger than her actress) has lead to considerable speculation that Cathy is actually Mitch's daughter.

* SceneryPorn: Hitchcock and cinematographer Robert Burks make good use of the photogenic [=NorCal=] coastline.

* AdultFear: The whole scene with the birds attacking the school. An InUniverse trope, as one woman overhears Melanie explaining about what happened to the school while eating with her children and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere immediately tries to hitch a ride with another diner patron out of town]].

* EyeScream: A brief shot of one of the victims, with his eyes pecked out.
* FeatheredFiend: Type B. This movie could be seen as the TropeCodifier.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's plenty of actual foreshadowing in the first half of the movie - Melanie taking time to notice a swarm of seagulls in San Francisco, and attention to lots of birds sitting on telephone poles.

* HarmfulToMinors: The school scene, among others.

* HotTeacher: Annie, who was once a lover of Mitch's

* KillAllHumans: Seems to be the birds' goal.

* MamaBear: Lydia, to Mitch.

* MommasBoy / MyBelovedSmother: Mitch and Lydia.

** An expanded ending was in the planning stages, with two additional scenes that were never filmed, but it was just as open to interpretation. [[spoiler:After a drive through the town, which is now in ruins and has bodies of the unlucky locals lying in its streets, the characters head down to San Francisco...where they find the Golden Gate Bridge completely covered in birds, silently watching them]].

* SpeciesTitle: AntagonistTitle about a murder of various birds.

* CerebusCallBack: As everyone plans to flee the house, Cathy begs to bring the love birds Melanie got her as a present - reminding everyone of the reason Melanie ended up in Bodega Bay in the first place.

* DisproportionateRetribution: One of Mitch's clients shot his wife in the head ''six times''. ''For changing the channel when he was watching a ball game''.

''The Birds'' is a 1963 suspense/horror film directed by Creator/AlfredHitchcock, [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] the short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. The film's innovative special effects, soundtrack, and apocalyptic theme influenced later "revenge of nature" disaster films.