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The Birds Scene 9 Summary

  • We finally get to the bird attacks.
  • It's Cathy's party. While the kids play, Mitch and Melanie climb up the bank by the seaside.
  • Mitch tries to get Melanie to stay for dinner.
  • They flirt.
  • Melanie reveals that she does various serious things like raise money for a Korean boy to go to school. She even takes classes at Berkeley to improve herself.
  • They have a conversation in which you learn that Melanie's mother abandoned her and she's wounded and a deep thinker. Hitchcock put the scene in over the objections of Evan Hunter, the screenwriter.
  • We think Evan had a point.
  • Mitch and Melanie head back down to the party, where the kids are playing blind man's bluff, with Annie supervising and Cathy blindfolded.
  • Both Annie and Lydia give Mitch and Melanie dark, broody looks.
  • But, their dark broodiness is interrupted when a seagull whooshes down and bops Cathy in the head.
  • Here's our first full-on bird attack, just about halfway through the film.
  • Much chaos, balloons popping, children running. The whole horror film nine yards.
  • Listen to the bird calls. They sound very realistic, but if you pay attention, you can tell they're synthesized.
  • The birds fly away, and Melanie and Mitch agree they don't know what is up with the birds.
  • Mitch uses the opportunity to convince Melanie to stay for dinner. Clever, that Mitch.