He decided to take a long vacation with Alma, which meant essentially that he spent many weekends on the estate on the slope of the Santa Cruz mountains. He planned a short promotional tour of Psycho in New York and other American cities before embarking on a world tour, later in 1960, that would include the major European cities as well as Sydney, Honolulu, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong. It would be gruelling, but the health of both Hitchcocks seemed to have recovered from the ordeals of previous years.
The world tour confirmed that he had already become something of a legend, or a myth, to the general public. As his fame grew he appeared to become more remote, more reserved, more impassive; he now resembled the giant visage of Rameses the Great that he had used many years before in Blackmail. He had become what he aspired to be, imperturbable and indifferent; he was now enveloped in, and perhaps almost overwhelmed by, the persona that he had assiduously created on the screen and in interviews. It was a mask, of course, for a most anxious and fearful person; but it worked. He enjoyed being recognised in the street but he seemed also to be untouchable. On the set he spoke only to a few; he rarely attended parties or dinners, except those which he himself gave; most were afraid to approach him. Ernest Lehman suggested that as a “protective wall” “he projected the image of a snobbish, elitist, judgmental, critical, unpleasant, aloof, superior being—none of which he truly felt about himself.”
Before he left for his grand tour, he had read accounts of a flock of 1,000 birds that plummeted down the chimney of a house in La Jolla, California, and wreaked havoc. They also attacked and injured the woman who lived there. It is likely that he was reminded of a short story by Daphne du Maurier, “The Birds,” for which he had already purchased the film option. It was a story about sustained attacks by a variety of birds on an English farmer and his family, with an inconclusive but ominous ending. Yet it was, at this stage, nothing more than a reminder.
The tour itself was a great success, especially in Paris where he was celebrated and honoured. Joseph Stefano said later that “he loved the attention and the fuss and the fame, and if he didn’t understand it, he didn’t feel compelled to. It was good for business and good for his ego.” Robert Boyle concurred by remarking that “Hitchcock appreciated other people’s appreciation of him, and he did nothing to correct any impression they might have of his genius.” When they compared him to Eisenstein, or Murnau, or Pudovkin, he knew as much as they did about the great directors; he had followed them avidly in his youth, as his early work in Germany testified.
On his return he had a number of possible projects on his desk. They included a film version of a French play about a missing wife suddenly returned, Piège pour un Homme Seul (Trap for a Man Alone), that had been staged in 1960. He was also interested in the cinematic possibilities of a novel, Village of Stars, about the complications of trying to jettison an atomic bomb. Daphne du Maurier’s “The Birds” was still on his mind after the mysterious event in La Jolla, and he may already have been dreaming of a play by J. M. Barrie that he had seen in his youth. Mary Rose had been staged in London, in 1920, and is concerned with the mysterious disappearance and return of a young girl on a Scottish island. Hitchcock seems to have been entranced by it and soon took active steps to film it.
Yet now local events affected him more immediately. In August 1961, there was a sudden invasion of birds in the town of Santa Cruz, where he had once filmed Shadow of a Doubt and near his second home. Thousands of them seem to have been driven inland by fog, and the Santa Cruz Sentinel carried the main headline “Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes” with a smaller headline “Thousands of Birds Floundering in Streets.” It was reported that “sooty shearwaters, fresh from a feast of anchovies” had crashed into cars and houses, creating havoc among the local population.
He had found his story. After the intense and almost claustrophobic setting of Psycho, the new film would be on a broader and airier scale. He telephoned Joseph Stefano, who had written Psycho with such panache, but Stefano was not particularly interested in a story about birds.
Hitchcock turned instead to Evan Hunter, whom he had briefly met on the set of his television series. Hunter had an impressive list of previous works, among them Blackboard Jungle, and under the pseudonym Ed McBain he had also begun to write a significant series of crime fictions. Hitchcock told associates that he had hired him to earn some “artistic respectability.” This may have been his response to the hysterical reception of Psycho. Hunter was a novelist, after all, and not a Hollywood scriptwriter.
In the autumn he happened to be watching the Today show on NBC television, when a commercial break arrested his attention. In an advertisement for a diet drink a pretty blonde turned her head to acknowledge a wolf-whistle. That was all. But Hitchcock was entranced. He believed that he had found a new female star. He arranged for her to be escorted to the studios at Universal where she showed the managers some examples of her work. On the following day she was told by her agent that “Alfred Hitchcock wants to sign you to a contract.” It was for seven years at $500 a week. Hitchcock had neither interviewed her, nor seen her in anything other than the advertisement, but he was sure that she was the one.
When Tippi Hedren and Hitchcock eventually met for lunch, he never mentioned The Birds. He talked abut everything and nothing, but all the time he was watching her closely, observing her expressions and her gestures, her manners and her responses. He also decided that he liked the way she walked. Then he tested her in a number of set camera pieces, including scenes from Rebecca and Notorious. At one of the screen tests he whispered to her, “Remind me to tell you a story about doughnuts and their manufacture.” The Hitchcocks then invited her to dinner at Chasen’s, the restaurant in Hollywood where they dined every Thursday evening; as they sat at the table Hitchcock presented her with a decorative pin displaying three golden birds in flight. She knew then that she had been given the part.
She said later that “to put a totally unknown into a major motion picture was fairly crazy. That’s taking a very, very big chance, and all the executives at Universal, people close to him, were saying ‘Hitch, what are you thinking? Every actress in Hollywood would want to do this movie.’ ” She added that “I was never told exactly why. I think he becomes obsessed with certain people.”
Hitchcock had told Evan Hunter, when they started to work together, that he was about to begin a golden period in his career. The director may also have been revived by the prospect of a new start with another film studio, since his agent had arranged for his return to Universal after his brief but profitable dalliance with Paramount. He then proceeded to sell his own company and the rights for his television series to Universal, receiving in return enough Universal stock to make him its third largest shareholder. If he thought he could now control affairs in his own way, he was mistaken; but the contract, for five more films, gave him the safety and security he craved. His favoured unit of assistants, cameramen and technicians had in effect their own private space, a compound that included offices, an editing suite, conference rooms, a small cinema for screenings and a private dining room with kitchen. In February 1962 he was installed in his new kingdom.
He had already begun his script sessions with Evan Hunter. Hunter recalls that he would come to his office every morning and find Hitchcock sitting in a black leather wingback chair “clad in a dark blue suit with dark blue socks, and white shirt and black tie, his hands clasped over his wide middle, his feet scarcely touching the floor.” His first request was always to “tell me the story so far.” He would then follow it by questions about the next moves. “Why does she do that?” “Why does she go up the staircase?” “Why did she get out of the car?” So, as Hunter said, “he edited the script before any of it was actually written, commenting on character development and comic effect in these early scenes of the film.”
These early, vaguely comic scenes, were important to set up the encounter between Tippi Hedren, as a rich Californian socialite, and the leading man,
Rod Taylor, in the part of a conventional lawyer. Their relationship would establish the emotional rhythm of the film which is soon to be violently disturbed. As soon as the maleficent birds arrived, the plot would simply pile mayhem upon mayhem in a way that would thoroughly scare the audience. He had used the du Maurier story as an inspiration rather than as a source book. He told Hunter that he never wished to work in England again and that he did not want to shoot a film about a farmer and his family. He did, however, decide to keep its minatory ending.
Hitchcock and Hunter enjoyed a very friendly relationship that extended to their families. Hitchcock would call Hunter’s wife to engage in amicable chit-chat, but never once asked to speak to Hunter. When they did meet, over a meal, he never asked the writer how he was proceeding with the script. Hunter also recalled that “he was a very possessive man. He virtually monopolised me and my family while we were in Los Angeles, even though the monopoly was one of kindness. He hosted us at dinners, took us to the races, made a Halloween visit to our children.” He may not have been possessive, however; he may just have been lonely.
Evan Hunter recalled one moment of crisis, when a natural disaster threatened the Hitchcocks. In November 1961 a massive bush fire swept through the hills behind their house on Bellagio Road. Some 500 houses had already been gutted, and the Hitchcocks did not know what to do. “Anita,” he told Hunter’s wife on the telephone, “you don’t understand. Everything’s on fire.” Should they take their possessions to the wine cellar or throw them in the pool? Then the wind changed direction and the Hitchcock house was spared. But it had been a close-run thing. According to his daughter he spent the day hosing down the roof and the adjacent land before retiring to bed. Other reports suggest that the Hitchcocks were evacuated to a local hotel. Whatever the circumstances, for a man of his fearful temperament, it would have been an ordeal of terror. But it was not unlike the disaster that he was imagining for the inhabitants of Bodega Bay in The Birds.
His cast was assembled without any difficulty; everyone wanted to work with Hitchcock. But there was to be no Cary Grant or Grace Kelly. “Evan,” he told Hunter early in the proceedings, “there will be no stars in this picture. I’m the star—the birds are the stars—and you’re the star.” The last phrase was no doubt added to save the writer’s feelings. The setting of the story was moved from the Cornish coast of du Maurier’s narrative to the coast of northern California. The climate there was as close to that of England as Hitchcock cared to preserve. It was all low land and sky, the immense sky which would become the proscenium for the savage birds. “I chose Bodega Bay,” Hitchcock said, “because I wanted an isolated group of people who lived near an articulate community.” There was indeed a small community at Bodega Bay but it was transformed by an exercise in Hitchcock’s imaginative geography. The look of the inhabitants was to be genuine, and they were all photographed for the benefit of the costume department, but the technicians and carpenters built a new estate complete with pier which looked better than any “real” setting. The downtown neighbourhood was also largely fictional.
The usual series of production meetings and script conferences ensued but, unusually, Tippi Hedren was invited to attend all of them. That was not necessarily a cause of complaint. She said later that “he gave me the best education an actor could have. With any other director it would have taken fifteen years, but he had me involved in every part of the film—script completion, wardrobe design, special-effects work, dubbing. It was his film from start to finish and he wanted me to learn how he put it together.”
The director was clearly paying particular attention to his principal actress. He superintended every detail of her dress, hair and make-up. This was not in itself entirely unusual, since he had imposed this regimen on other actresses, but it was soon being whispered that he had asked members of the crew to follow her and report her movements. He took samples of her handwriting, and sent them to a graphologist for analysis. He presented her with flowers and wine. On one evening they were being driven to meet their colleagues; as soon as Hitchcock saw them, and knew that they could see him, he enveloped her in a passionate embrace. It was a piece of play-acting, but at some level he wished them to believe that they were having an affair. It was a childish form of wish-fulfilment.
Yet his obsession also affected his behaviour. Hedren recalled that “he started telling me what I should wear on my own time, what I should be eating, and what friends I should be seeing.” She has also said that “he was developing this obsession for me, and I began to feel very uncomfortable because I had no control over him.” Rod Taylor, her co-star, recalled that “he wouldn’t let me or anyone else ride in the studio cars with her…He was putting a wall around her so that all her time would be spent only with him.” Her own daughter, Melanie, stated that “Hitch was taking her away from me, and suddenly I wasn’t even allowed to visit my mom at the studio.” Alma had no doubt witnessed similar behaviour over the years. “Oh Tippi dear,” Hedren recalled her as saying, “I am so sorry you have to go through all this—I am so sorry.” It seems that there was nothing to be done.
Hitchcock himself once said that “romantic obsession has always interested me. Obsessions of all kinds are interesting but, for me, romantic obsession is the most interesting.” Hedren was not the only object of his attentions; at the same time as he was supervising the world of Tippi Hedren, he found another young actress. Claire Griswold had played a small part in one of his television dramas, and he invited her to lunch where he announced that “Miss Griswold, you and I are going to do business.” As soon as he had signed an exclusive seven-year contract with her, the same process of control began to emerge. He rehearsed her for a scene from To Catch a Thief, and it became clear to her that she was supposed to become a replica of Grace Kelly. He dressed and directed her as if she were a mannequin. She felt uncomfortable in this new role, naturally enough, and over the next few months she began to extricate herself from the situation. His interest waned, and she quietly returned to her old life. It is an indication, if nothing else, of his eagerness and readiness to adopt (or adapt) young women for his own directorial purposes.
The filming of The Birds, which began in the early spring of 1962 and continued into the summer, was wearying and difficult. There were, first of all, the birds themselves. They had to be trained, and protected. Some of them were coached to land on the necks of children, a macabre device but one rendered innocent by the fact that on screen the actual biting is done by glove puppets. A representative for the protection of birds was at hand and would say, according to Hitchcock, “That’s enough now, Mr. Hitchcock, I think the birds are getting tired.” There were some prominent artistes. One trained gull was named Charlie, and a raven was known as Buddy.
Some of the birds were manufactured of papier mâché, and were tied to the characters with wires. Much of the real birds’ behaviour, however, was entirely natural. A camera crew spent three days filming seagulls feeding in a rubbish dump. For another sequence a cameraman stood on a cliff off Santa Cruz Island as the birds dived to catch fish thrown towards them. Meat was sometimes strategically positioned on top of the camera. These shots were then edited and processed to take their part in the unfolding narrative. Other birds were painted on to the film, frame by frame. Hitchcock himself had a terror of birds and did not approach them during the filming. This may account for the atmosphere of panic that announces their arrival.
The human players were also something of a challenge. Hitchcock said of Tippi Hedren, in an interview for the London Sunday Express, that “you know she had never acted before…she had nothing to unlearn…I controlled every movement on her face.” He watched her incessantly on the set. A journalist visiting the production noted that “he was directing Tippi like a robot.” Or, as Hedren herself said, directing her “down to the movement of an eye and every turn of my head.” The pressure on her was intense and unremitting. She said that “if he thought I wasn’t doing exactly what he wanted, every day dur
ing preparation for The Birds, he would sulk or pout or seem hurt or disappointed.”
He had planned every scene and every sequence of narrative in a series of graphics pinned to the walls of his office. He had to create a rhythm in his head. But then something happened. His mood was strangely altered and in the early stages of filming Robert Boyle, the production designer, remembered the cameraman, Robert Burks, saying, “Oh boy, I don’t know what’s happening this time, but this isn’t Hitchcock.” The director then confessed at the end of the day that “I got lost today—in my shooting.” He admitted that he had a sudden desire to improvise. This was in part to give more depth to Tippi Hedren’s performance.
Courtesy of Universal Studios/Getty Images
Tippi Hedren under attack in The Birds, 1963.
He explained in an interview with Truffaut that “I was quite tense and this is unusual for me because as a rule I have a lot of fun during the shooting. When I went home to my wife at night, I was still tense and upset.” He added that “something happened that was altogether new in my experience. I began to study the scenario as we went along, and I saw that there were weaknesses in it. This emotional siege I went through served to bring out an additional creative sense in me.” In particular he seems to have remembered the effect on him of the Blitz when he was staying at Claridge’s in London. He was renewing his own anxieties to cope with a film that was all about anxiety. He invented new scenes concerning the attacks of the birds, elevating the panic of the participants, and added a different ending in which the imperilled family simply drives away as the birds look on.
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