The Birds

NEW 35mm PRINT! ►Now these are Angry Birds! Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary doomsday fantasia is cinema’s greatest disaster movie, and one of the director’s finest works. Tippi Hedren, in her screen debut, plays Melanie, a smitten San Francisco socialite who pursues bachelor lawyer Mitch (Rod Taylor) back to his sleepy hometown of Bodega Bay — a pretty enough place, really, until our fine feathered friends start taking major ornithological offence at humankind. Based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier, The Birds was Hitchcock's most elaborate technical undertaking; showcasing some 371 trick shots, the talents of renowned Disney animator Ub Iwerks, and an innovative electronic soundtrack, the movie is a tour-de-force of special effects technology. Art director Robert Boyle claimed that the visual design was inspired by Edvard Munch's The Scream. The film was a screaming box-office success. "If Hitchcock had never made another motion picture in his life, The Birds would place him securely among the giants of the cinema" (Peter Bogdanovich). "Hitchcock at his best ... It’s fierce and Freudian as well as great cinematic fun" (Tom Milne, Time Out). Colour, 35mm. 120 mins.