The Making of Hitchcock's The Birds

by Tony Lee Moral

Published to coincide with the film's 50th anniversary in 2013, the first book-length treatment on the production of this modernist masterpiece   Featuring new interviews with stars Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, and Veronica Cartwright, as well as sketches and storyboards from Hitchcock's A-list technical team, Robert Boyle, Albert Whitlock, and Harold Michelson, the book charts every aspect of the film's production all set against the tumultuous backdrop of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and JFK's presidency. Using unpublished material from the Alfred Hitchcock Collection, Evan Hunter's files, Peggy Robertson's papers, and Robert Boyle's artwork, this is the ultimate guide to Hitchcock's most ambitious film. This book analyzes the film's modernist underpinnings, from art director Robert Boyle's initial sketches influenced by Munch's The Scream , to the groundbreaking electronic score by pioneering German composers Remi Gassmann and Oskar Sala. There is also a time line detailing the film's production to its release at MOMA in New York, and the 1963 Cannes Film Festival.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Tony Lee Moral is an author specialising in mystery and suspense. He has written three books on the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock: Alfred Hitchcock's Movie Making Masterclass (2013) published by MWP books; The Making of Hitchcock's The Birds (2013) published by Kamera Books and Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie (2005) published by Scarecrow Press. Tony was born in Hastings, England in 1971, before moving to California. He lived in Monterey and Big Sur for two years which forms the inspiration for his latest thriller The Haunting of Alice May, which is published in March 2019 in Paperback and Kindle.

Hitchcock was a master storyteller, using plot, character, location and props to tell engaging stories of mystery, suspense, crime and retribution. Tony uses these principles to write his novels, including The Haunting of Alice May which has just been released in paperback and Kindle. Three more novels are along the way.

Websites
https://www.tonyleemoralbooks.com
https://www.ghostmaven.com
https://www.alfredhitchcockbooks.com

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/tonyleemoral...

Instagram & Twitter
tonyleemoral

Keywords
Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Crime, Murder. Paranormal, Ghost Thrillers, Romance, Investigation

Reviews

[Anthony McGill · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE MASTER AT WORK.
Tony Lee Moral has followed up his extensive study of Alfred Hitchcock's 'Marnie' with what is no doubt the definitive production history of the director's previous film 'The Birds.'

Interesting background to the original story written by Daphne du Maurier and the conflicts over Evan Hunter's screenplay. The 'discovery' of Tippi Hedren (a very underrated performance) for the main role, the huge technical problems associated with the making of the film and the "training" of crows, ravens and seagulls make for enlightening reading.

One of the most interesting chapters is devoted to the use of electronic sound in preference to a music score and the influence of Bernard Herrmann and the German composers Gassmann and Sala.

There's detailed coverage of the promotional campaign including the botched premiere at MOMA and the subsequent successful re-launch at Cannes.

All in all, everything you always wanted to know about 'The Birds.' With 16 pages of informative photos, the majority in color.

I love the film and watch it regularly. Like most of Hitch's films not without faults but even those occasional flubs make the film even more endearing. Next step, go and enjoy this excellent film (it gets better at every viewing) on the big screen. Not Hitchcock's greatest but still a stimulating lesson in filmmaking and entertainment from the master.

[John Inman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's a fascinating look into the making of Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS. Well-written, extensively researched (I presume) and a lot of fun to read.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been really enjoying these deep dives into the making of a single movie and Hitchcock is my favorite director so I was over the moon when I learned about this. However, this wasn’t quite as engaging as I hoped. It astonishingly covers every aspect of the making of The Birds as I hoped it would. I guess my problem is that The Birds is a special effects movie so a lot of this covered that technical process and it got a little dry. It could also be that while The Birds is good, it’s not Rear Window, Vertigo or Psycho. I don’t want to short sell this too much because I was always interested just not fascinated. For fans of Hitchcock and books about filmmaking, a solid recommend.

[Russell Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tony Lee Moral’s The Making of Hitchcock’s The Birds is a fascinating book. The book is exhaustive in its approach to the film. Hitchcock aficionados, those who love the film, and those who love filmmaking can learn so very much from this book. Moral takes us from the beginnings when the famous director had the idea for the movie after reading the short story it was based upon to the critical reaction to the film and its aftermath. We get a glimpse into this genius, Alfred Hitchcock, and although he was a flawed individual, we find how he is considered to be one of the great film directors. The way The Birds was put together technically is an amazing account. My only gripe is that Moral spends much time telling us of the use of matte paintings, and yet he assumes we know what those are. It is easy to glean from the text a basic idea of what they are, but how they were used is told of but never fully explained. Likewise, he treats the use of blue screen and sodium vapor the same way. Since so much of the movie was a combination of these techniques, I truly wish Moral had explained more, for he insults his readers by simply assuming we know what he is describing. But the personal interviews of the actors and techs involved in the filming is engrossing. Apparently, star Tippi Hedren and Hitchcock had a major falling out on their second film together, but little is explained here. All we get is a cursory account and a recommendation to read Moral’s book about the making of that second Hedren/Hitchcock film Marnie. That not only is disappointing, but it seems like a “buy my next book” plug. But I can say this book is intriguing, and, even though The Birds shows up on free TV regularly and I have seen it countless times, reading this book made me want to see it again now. And thus I purchased the DVD. So in one way, this book has done its duty.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alfred Hitchcock's film "The Birds" is not my favorite film made by the director but I read the book after reading Mr. Moral's book about the making of the film "Marnie," "Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie".

Mr. Moral's account of the production phase of "The Birds" is a fascinating one. As with the previous book he had the cooperation of the Hitchcock estate which is invaluable. Significant portions of the book feature first-person interviews of people who aided in the creative process of getting "The Birds" into production and release, notably Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren.

The details of the production as written about by Mr. Moral clarifies for me why "The Birds" is a lesser Hitchcock film to me. After reading "The Making of Hitchcock's 'The Birds'" I tracked down a copy of the film and watched it for the first time in many years. My reaction to the film was the same as before. I did enjoy this book and recommend it to fans of the very great filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock.

[Andrew Garvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tracking every aspect of the film's production, from the inclusion of Daphne de Maurier's original short story in an 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' anthology to Hitchcock actually reading it some time afterwards, all the way through to the marketing campaign, the cancelled MOMA premiere (their catering wasn't up to Hitchcock's standards) and the Birds' legacy, this is an entertaining and informative, if not always indepth account of one of the director's best-known films. Some of the technical detail about the special effects is a little dry and under-explained but the information about the real, living birds and how they were trained and filmed is fascinating. There's also a (possibly too) detailed narrative of the film's scripting process and the fact a third of it had been filmed before Hitchcock had even settled on an ending.

[Studvet · Rating 4 out of 5]

In depth analysis of the film and intricate details of how it was made. From my era so particularly interesting. Interesting to hear the view of people who worked for him for years closely and saw nothing amiss with his behaviour and then the distorted memories of his star Tippi Hedren which get more extreme and detailed with time. Records don't support what she says and shows how memories over 50 years become unreliable as she was grateful and fulsome in her praise of Hitchcock at the time.

[Teri Temme · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, but I really expected even more technical aspects of the filming. I was surprised to learn they used mostly live birds - interesting!

[SUNNY C. H. Tam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Make you get a image that birds are horrified.

[Sammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A divisive read.

First, this book is - on many subjects - exhaustive. Moral doesn't just look at how the crew caught the birds, he looks at the various technical problems they created and the industry solutions and ideas to solve said problems. You feel that whenever Moral spoke with someone (people remembering 50-year-old events) he felt inclined to include every fact and word they said. He's clearly got a passion for Hitchcock and this film, and it shows. At the same time, sometimes he's frustratingly marginal - each of the actors is introduced with thoughts on the audition process and why they took the role, but their personal biographies are frustratingly slim.

Of all Hitch's films, "The Birds" is one of the most deserving of biographies, and I'm glad that Moral is going from conception to legacy, leaving no stone unturned. My issues are threefold. First, by straightforwardly accepting the word of all the participants (and, in some cases, facts from older interviews), he provides us with a rather bland palette. Reminiscences after 50 years are occasionally opinionated (cf Tippi Hedren's memories of Hitch) but more often than not, they mellow. A lot of the time, an interviewee recalls an event in rather wise, unconcerned prose. While this allows each person to be heard without any biased filter, it also removes much of the interest from some of these memories, particularly the unedited ones! (The entire section on Daphne Du Maurier's thoughts on Hitchcock is dead boring - there's very little personal insight, and we just get some vague recollections about how she at first didn't know who was buying her book... and then she knew. Wow.) Fair enough, you interview someone and it's polite to leave them in the book. Yet when Bodega Bay resident Glenice gets an entire paragraph about how she got to have lunch with Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette, you wonder if she couldn't have just had a footnote mention for the one contribution of the paragraph - that the extras wore their own clothes!

Second, Moral's prose is astonishingly workmanlike. It often reads like a highschooler's memories of a school trip: very matter-of-fact and observational, true, but rarely rising above adequate. This in itself wouldn't be a problem, but it leads me to the third point about this book: it may be touted as an analysis, but it's more of a production diary. There are very few opinions (it comes as quite a shock when Evan Hunter actually admits he sometimes got pissed off at Hitch for being a social busybody) and Moral seems to forego analysis at every turn, mostly opting for documentation. Sadly, the layout of the book is not styled like a diary (sections are structured in order of discipline, not chronology: "writing", "casting", "filming" etc). The two approaches don't work. Because it's structured like an analysis, we follow all the writing facts before we reach those chronological points during filming (particularly saddening in this case because it was a rare example of Hitch improvising on set - to have these experiences laid out in chronological order would've been phenomenal!). And because it's written like a report, you really have to appreciate minutiae to enjoy this volume.

Things pick up a fair bit once we reach the studio filming section, as Moral's tendency for writing a production journal actually gels with the subject matter. He examines most of the big scenes throughout the film, detailing the unique ways Hitchcock and the crew found to work with this most unusual script. Some of the interviewees drop their guard a bit to at least suggest the heresy that Hitchcock wasn't a perfect individual. It's an interesting section of the book and quite enjoyable (if still reasonably pedestrian in style).

I hope I don't sound too cruel, as Moral's depth of research really shines through (he could perhaps have used another proofread - embarrassingly, neither Hitchcock nor Tippi Hedren appear in the index). And I look forward to reading his "Marnie" journal, because that film surely created far more controversies, so perhaps those will invigorate his prose. As a Hitchcock fan (and one whose favourite of his films is "The Birds"), I'm glad to have this volume on my shelf. This is certainly an adequate book in the level of information it provides, it just does so in an unfortunately dull fashion.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a detour from the long Dance with Dragons, I started this book at work the other day. The Birds has always been one of my favorite movies and it is very interesting to read about the making of this movie. I am a fascinated with how they did the Bird attacks, what they went through to cast the various stars and what tricks they used to make the story come alive. A quick and interesting read.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all things Hitchcock. This is a nice portrait of him and an in depth look at how a movie is made (admittedly some of it was a little boring and the author tended to repeat some things).

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

way too clinical and haphazardly ordered...actually made some good content and info. more boring and confusing.

[Joe Kuhlmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

The content is strong. Needed a stronger editor.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great for fans of Hitchcock and "The Birds." (Though the text could have used one more pass by the copy editor.)

[Jilles · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read for a Hitchcock or The Birds fan.