MovieChat Forums > The Birds (1963) Discussion > Tippi Hedren’s character was a Bitch!

Tippi Hedren’s character was a Bitch!

posted 9 months ago by JasonMovieGuy88 (51)
5 replies | jump to latest

Little Girl: “oh won’t you please come to my birthday party?”

Melanie: (smugly smiling, looks down with a dry expression ) “I don’t think so.”

How rude!! What was wrong with this narcissistic blonde who randomly bought the girl a bird just to flirt with her father, then shows off her wealth and fur coat like she’s princess Diana.

No wonder Jessica Tandy (the much better actress in the movie) didn’t like Melanie’s cold disposition.

It’s interesting - Alfred Hitchcock is a great director, but seems keen on making the women not likable. Janet Leigh was also nasty and stuck up in Psycho, which is why no one felt sorry for her when she was killed in the shower.

I think Hitchcock was insecure around beautiful women because he wasn’t that attractive and probably was turned down by many of those types of girls when he was in high school. Which is why he treated all of his female stars so cruelly, starting with Joan Fontaine. And I heard horror stories about his treatment of Tippi Hedren.

I think her dismissing the girl probably was a way for Hitchcock and the screenwriter to look back at their lame childhoods and think “I asked a girl like that to my birthday party and she also said No to me. So let’s make her do the same thing, only to an innocent little girl.”

The Birds is a slow moving, gross film that has random scenes where the birds will attack and kill people and end of dead themselves. The story is pretty sick and I wouldn’t recommend watching it with food.

Again the main character is not likable and therefore the audience grows tired of her arrogant demeanour - despite looking beautiful.

[–] whoanelly (1559) 8 months ago

I think Melanie was being diplomatic. She knew the mother didn’t want her there. I think she would have liked to accept the invite but she declined because of the mother.

And the mother didn’t like any of the women her son showed interest in. Remember, she did the same thing to the school teacher.

I think you need to look a little more deeply into the characters. Maybe you’re the one reacting to Melanie as if you had a chip on your shoulder from girls in high school?

[–] Otter (24464) 8 months ago

Agree that Melanie refused because the mother didn't want her there, but it's not like she was a person who'd enjoy a child's birthday party. I'm not either, so I'm strictly Team Melanie on this issue.

But yes, by this point in his life. Hitchcock was definitely having second thoughts and mixed feelings about his "Hitchcock Blonde" characters, and you can see that in this film, "Psycho", "Vertigo", and "Marnie". I think he created the Blonde character because that was his fantasy woman, but by the late fifties he'd realized that putting his fantasy onscreen wasn't satisfying whatever itch he was attempting to scratch. So, he made "Vertigo", which is about the realization that the fantasy woman is just a fantasy, and that the real woman playing the fantasy character is just a cheap floozy who'll do anything for a little money or attention.

Which is unkind, but it's waaay kinder than his treatment of Tippi Hedren's characters in the early sixties! "The Birds" is about the slow destruction of such a person, and "Marnie" is about raping her, in ways that were considered shocking, but legally acceptable at the time. Hitchcock had always had a streak of cruelty in him, or at least in his films, but it was kept strictly in check until Tippi Hedren came along.

[–] whoanelly (1559) 8 months ago

I think he was a creep.

Re The Birds: Du Maurier’s novella is quite different from AH’s film; he made up most of it.

[–] Otter (24464) 8 months ago

Hitchcock definitely got creepier with age. From the late fifties on, his films got darker and crueler. Of course that darkness made "Vertigo" and "Psycho" some of the best films ever made, but then Tippi Hedren came in and everything went to hell, through no fault of Hedren's.

According to the biographies I read, Hitchcock had lived "a blameless life" until then, channeling all this dark impulses into his films, and making them entertaining. But with Hedren, apparently he tried to let the darkness loose in real life... and well. We all know what happened with Hedren, and well. His association with her marked the beginning of his decline as an artist. I can't love "The Birds" it's technically awesome but cold and cruel, but that was the best film he made on. Few films after that, and none of them as great or as popular as the ones he'd made before he let his demons out to play.

The lesson of his life is, IMHO, that some things need to remain fantasies.

[–] Information-Police (4184) 6 months ago

Of course, she was written that way. The movie hints that she was the cause of the bird attacks so she had to appear to be a less than wonderful character