The film: Alfred Hitchcock's follow-up to Psycho, after a three-year break from the big screen, The Birds was one of the less critically acclaimed but more commercially popular of his later films. It was, some would argue, his final masterpiece, coming ahead of such disappointments as Torn Curtain, Topaz and Family Plot. It was also quite unlike anything he had made before, with a non-human menace and plenty of special effects.

The story begins in a posh pet shop in San Francisco, where socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren in her first film) meets lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor, above right with Hedren) by chance. He has stopped in to find a pair of lovebirds for his sister and she a mynah bird for a relative. After some flirting between the two, Taylor leaves for a weekend up the coast in the small town where his mother and sister live, without his lovebirds.

Hedren follows later, having found a pair for him. She plans to leave them at his doorstep and then disappear. He sees her, however, and the couple begins a courtship of sorts, which takes up the film's first hour.

During this time, while characters have been established and the small town's geography and layout carefully exposed, there have been incidences of seagulls crashing into windows or flying into people. Gradually these increase and other bird species join in. Then the full wrath of the local bird population is unleashed upon the small town, with birds flocking down chimneys in their hundreds, pecking away at doors and roofs, and killing people with rabid abandon.

Some of the special effects appear rather outdated today, although the excellent efforts of the bird wranglers that Hitchcock employed, and the gripping final 30 minutes, make up for any such shortcomings.

The extras: There are several DVD versions of The Birds but the one to go for is Universal's Collector's Edition. Extras include an 80-minute feature All About the Birds, with Hedren and Taylor reminiscing about their time on set and Hitchcock scholars discussing the film's production. Also included are script excerpts for a deleted scene, an alternate ending, Hedren's screen tests, some promotional newsreels, and a theatrical trailer with Hitchcock having a sly dig at battery-hen farming and bird hunting. The widescreen-enhanced 1.85:1 transfer is quite good, if grainy.