Behind the opening credits, crows fly across the screen, cawing. Their din grows louder and louder as the credits progress, and the calls of other birds join in, though only crows can be seen in the frame. As the birds continue calling (though now it is mostly seagulls making noise), the film opens on a shot of downtown San Francisco. Melanie Daniels crosses the street, walking with purpose. As she walks along the sidewalk, a passerby whistles at her and she turns around to smile at him. Looking up, she sees hundreds of seagulls swarming above the city.
Melanie walks into Davidson’s Pet Shop as a man walks out with two terriers (this is Alfred Hitchcock’s cameo in the film). Inside the pet store, many varieties of birds are squawking in their cages. Melanie goes upstairs and begins speaking with the pet store owner, Mrs. Macgruder. Melanie asks her if she has ever seen so many gulls swarming over the city like that, and Mrs. Macgruder dismisses it as likely caused by a storm at sea. They go on to talk about the reason for Melanie’s trip to the pet store: she has ordered a Myna bird and she wants to make sure it will come fully grown and be able to talk. Unfortunately, the delivery that includes Melanie’s bird is late, and has not yet arrived at the pet shop. Mrs. Macgruder tells her this, and tries to get her to wait at the pet shop by telling her they should be there any minute and offering to call the delivery company. Melanie grows impatient, and tells Mrs. Macgruder that she should deliver the bird to Melanie’s apartment when it arrives at the store. Mrs. Macgruder, hoping to avoid having to deliver the bird to Melanie’s apartment, disappears to call the company supplying the bird while Melanie writes down her delivery address. Meanwhile, Mitch Brenner enters the store and walks upstairs to where Melanie is.
Mitch calls out to Melanie, seeming to mistake her for one of the store clerks and asking if she can help him. Melanie is taken aback at first, but then decides to play along and pretend to be a store clerk. It seems like she might be romantically interested in him, and she flirts as she pretends to assist him. She asks him what he needs, and when he tells her that he is looking for "lovebirds," she becomes visibly excited. She shows him around the shop pretending to be the store clerk, but as he asks her questions about the birds, it becomes clear that she does not know anything about birds. She mistakes canaries for lovebirds, but convinces Mitch to take a look at the canaries anyway. As she tries to take one out of its cage, it escapes and flies around the room. Mrs. Macgruder comes back during the chaos, and tries to help Melanie catch the bird, while Mitch waits calmly. When the bird lands on a table, Mitch catches it in his hat and returns it to the cage.
As Mitch puts the bird back in its cage, he refers to it as “Melanie Daniels,” even though he and Melanie never exchanged names in the pet shop. She becomes disconcerted by this, and presses him on how he knows her name. Mitch reveals that he saw her appear in court when a prank of hers ended with the smashing of a storefront window. He then explains that when he saw her in the pet shop and pretended to think she was a clerk, he was trying to put her at the receiving end of a gag so she would know how it feels. He did actually want the lovebirds, though (for his little sister’s birthday, it will later turn out). Melanie grows angry with him and calls him a louse, and Mitch leaves without any lovebirds. Melanie turns back and asks Mrs. Macgruder what Mitch’s name is, but Mrs. Macgruder does not know. Melanie runs down the stairs and out the front door, and just catches Mitch’s license plate number as he drives away. Repeating it to herself over again, she rushes back inside and writes it down on a slip of paper inside the pet shop.
Mrs. Macgruder calls down from upstairs, asking if Melanie can come back to get the bird later that afternoon, but Melanie coldly tells her that she must deliver it to her apartment. Melanie then asks if she can use the phone in the pet store, and calls the Daily News. She speaks with someone named Charlie at the city desk, with whom she seems to have a close relationship, and asks him to find out who owns the license plate number that she got from Mitch’s car. Charlie agrees to do it for her, and she goes on to ask if her father is in the office; it is implied that her father is the head of the newspaper. When she hangs up, she asks Mrs. Macgruder if she has any lovebirds in the store. Mrs. Macgruder says she does not have any but can order some to arrive the following morning, and Melanie tells her that is fine, with a mischievous expression on her face.
The next day, Melanie walks into Mitch’s building with two lovebirds in a cage and gets in the elevator with another man. When she gets to Mitch’s floor, both of them get off the elevator and walk down the hall. She arrives at Mitch’s door, and places the cage and a letter for him in front of the doorway. It turns out that the other man lives across the hall from Mitch; he tells her that Mitch is away for the weekend, so she better not leave the birds there alone. When she asks, the man tells her that Mitch has gone to Bodega Bay, about two hours north along the coast, where he goes every weekend. In the next shot, we see the lovebirds in their cage on the floor of a car. Another shot shows Melanie driving down the Pacific coast highway and smiling softly to herself. As the car turns around bends at a high speed, the bodies of the Lovebirds sway with the car. Shots of the drive seem to highlight the natural beauty of the area. Melanie is shown driving very fast, and screeching as she goes around bends.
Melanie arrives in Bodega Bay in her expensive car, wearing a long fur coat. She pulls up in front of the town’s general store/post office while a few passersby stare at her, intrigued by the wealthy newcomer. Inside the store, she asks the clerk, who is also taken aback by her appearance, where she can find Mitch Brenner. He is vague at first, and Melanie is unable to get a clear answer from him about where the Brenners live. Eventually he steps out from behind the desk and walks to the porch of the store with Melanie, so he can point across the bay at the Brenners’ house. Melanie asks who he means by “the Brenners,” worried that Mitch might be married, and when the clerk explains that Mitch lives there with his mother and little sister, Melanie chuckles to herself. The clerk tells her how to get there, but the only road would bring Melanie right up to the front door, so she asks if there is a way to sneak up to the back door. The clerk seems confused by her request, and she explains that she is hoping to surprise them. He laughs and, mostly joking, suggests that she get a boat and ride it across the bay to their dock. When she takes this request seriously and asks where she can find a boat, the clerk seems surprised but offers to order one for her. He goes back inside to make the phone call, and she follows him after pausing a moment to stare across the bay at the house. Back inside the store, she interrupts the clerk’s phone call to ask the name of Mitch’s little sister. The clerk thinks it is Alice, but asks another person working in the store, who says it is Lois, and they argue. The clerk suggests that Melanie go ask the school teacher, Annie Hayworth, to make sure she gets the right name, and gives Melanie directions to her house. He insists one more time that the girl’s name is Alice, sends Melanie on her way without charging her for the phone calls, and smiles at her as she goes.
In the next scene, Melanie is driving past the school to Annie Hayworth’s house. She arrives and rings the bell, and Annie calls back from the backyard. Annie comes around to the front of the house, and Melanie tells her she was sent by the man at the post office to ask after the little Brenner girl’s name. Annie tells her it is Cathy, and when Melanie says that the men at the post office were sure it was Alice or Lois, Annie quips that they are the reason the mail never gets delivered on time. Annie asks Melanie if she wanted to see Cathy Brenner for some reason, and when Melanie tells her no, Annie realizes that Melanie’s visit has to do with Mitch. She seems upset by the idea of a friendship between Melanie and Mitch. Annie changes the subject by remarking how addicting it is to till the soil in her garden. Melanie is vague about her plans, but Annie seems pleased when Melanie says she is only staying for a few hours. Melanie apologizes for being mysterious and starts walking back toward her car to leave. Annie questions her further, asking if she came up from San Francisco, and if that is where she met Mitch. When Melanie answers affirmatively, Annie suggests that Mitch meets many young women in San Francisco. Annie sees the birds in Melanie’s front seat and when Melanie says they are lovebirds, Annie’s suspicions about Melanie’s intentions are confirmed. As Melanie drives away, Annie looks after her with a dismayed expression on her face.
Downtown in Bodega Bay, Melanie writes “To Cathy” on an envelope and drives down to the docks. As she walks out on a pier, fishermen stare at her as she passes them. She approaches a man and asks if he has a boat ready for the name “Daniels,” and he shows her to the boat. He holds the birdcage as she climbs down into the boat, and he shakes his head at her. He climbs into the boat after her, sets down the birdcage, starts the motor, climbs back out of the boat, and watches as she motors away. Wide shots of Melanie as she boats across the bay show the natural beauty of the surrounding area. As she approaches the Brenner house she kills the engine and sees a couple of figures walk from the house to a pick-up truck and drive away. Mitch is left in the yard, and goes into the barn. Seeing her chance, Melanie paddles up to the dock, ties up the boat, sneaks up to the house with the birdcage, and goes in through the back door. She walks to the living room with the lovebirds, places them on a bench, leaves the note for Cathy, rips up the original note for Mitch, and returns it to her purse. She looks out the window to make sure Mitch is still in the barn, and rushes back out the back door and down the dock to the boat. Just as she is paddling away, Mitch emerges from the barn and starts walking back toward the house. She crouches down in the boat to watch him. He soon emerges from the house and runs to the edge of the yard to see if there is anyone on the road, as he has presumably seen the birds and the letter, but does not see anyone.
As he turns to walk back to the house, he notices the boat and runs inside to get a pair of binoculars. Melanie starts the boat to try to get away but he sees her through the binoculars and smiles to himself. She rides back to the town smiling as Mitch gets in his car and drives around the bay to meet her on the other side. He beats her to the town dock and stands there waiting for her, and she puts a faux-innocent look on her face as she approaches. When she is almost to the dock, a seagull swoops down and hits her in the head. She touches her hand to her head, and finds it bleeding. Mitch jumps into action, helping her bring the boat in, and asking if she is ok. He says the seagull attack was “the damndest thing [he] ever saw,” and said it looked like the gull attacked her deliberately. He helps her off the boat, saying he will help her fix up her cut.
Analysis
The short opening sequence in which Melanie walks through downtown San Francisco is rich with details that begin to provide Melanie’s characterization and foreshadow the central conflict of the film. Because the cawing of birds has continued from the ominous title sequence into this scene, the audience understands the audible presence of birds in the background to be sinister, though gulls flying above San Francisco is—in normal circumstances—no cause for alarm. This discomfort is confirmed by Melanie’s suspicious glance skyward before entering the pet shop, and by the questions she asks Mrs. Macgruder about the gulls. This pattern of exposition is repeated frequently in the film, as characters exhibit precocious suspicions that foreshadow the coming bird attacks. Additionally, Melanie’s purposeful stride, as well as her smiling at a cat-caller, indicate two of the most important aspects of her characterization: she is confidently independent and sexually liberated. Though female sexual liberation would not be characterized in such a way by filmmakers today, Hitchcock likely uses this cat-call to demonstrate Melanie’s lack of fear or shame for her sexuality, which will come to drive the plot as she pursues a man she desires despite the norms of the time, which dictated that men should do the pursuing. (It should also be noted that the man who exits the pet shop just before Melanie enters is actually the director, Alfred Hitchcock, himself. Though it is not necessarily important to the reading of the film, it is an interesting signature—Hitchcock places himself in small cameos in many of his films).
Inside the pet shop, Melanie’s questioning of Mrs. Macgruder about the gulls further foreshadows the gull attacks that will come later in the film. It will also come to help demonstrate Melanie’s intelligence: her suspicions of certain bird behaviors in the first part of the film is justified, though other characters brush them off as insignificant. We are also shown some negative aspects of her character as she cuts Mrs. Macgruder very little slack for the lateness of the myna bird and insists that she deliver it to her apartment even though it may be inconvenient or costly for Mrs. Macgruder to do so. When Mitch enters and asks Melanie for help, her reaction indicates that she is attracted to him (she brightens up and agrees to help him once she looks at him). Additionally, the effortlessness with which she slips into the lie that she works at the store demonstrates her mischievous or ‘wild’ spirit, about which we will learn more over the course of the film.
As the scene progresses and she is utterly incompetent at helping Mitch with the birds, however, it becomes clear to the audience that Mitch has the upper hand in the charade, and likely knows that she does not actually work there. This makes her begin to look foolish in comparison to Mitch despite her characterization as a relatively strong, intelligent, and independent person. This contrast carries through the film, as she (and every other female character) is repeatedly shown to be weak or foolish when placed next to Mitch. Even though she may be shown as strong and intelligent when placed next to other women, the prevailing social atmosphere and media representations at the time would have held women as weaker than their male counterparts in many ways, and Hitchcock’s characterizations are no different. Such a biased view of gender is also key to the audience’s understanding of the film: Melanie is unique in her rejection of certain gender norms when she pursues Mitch, and her breaking with such norms is suggested as a possible reason for the bird attacks. Though a key aspect of the film is that no reasons are confirmed for the attacks, a frightened mother shouts at Melanie later in the film that she is the cause of the attacks because she is “evil,” and her ‘wild’ antics are cited as dangerous by Mitch’s mother. In fact, though Hitchcock is considered a brilliant filmmaker in many ways, he is also often seen as relying heavily on gender bias, and often punishes female characters for their sexuality (the climactic murder of the female lead in Psycho is often seen as retribution for her crimes, which are driven by her sexuality).
It is no surprise, then, that Mitch calmly catches the bird in his hat while Melanie and Mrs. Macgruder ineffectually flail around the room. Next, Mitch’s explanation of how he knows Melanie’s name gives the first concrete example of the kind of mischief that characterizes her. She comes from a wealthy family and has a lot of time and money, and so she spends much of her time running wild and pulling pranks on people. Though Melanie is angry at Mitch for the way he tricked her and seemed to judge her character, she is still evidently romantically interested in him, perhaps more so because his quick wit is a match for hers. As she scrambles to try to find out his name, we also find out an important detail about her background—her father heads a big newspaper, which explains her wealth. She is characterized in this scene as resourceful, quick, and manipulative, as she pulls strings to find out Mitch’s name.
The scene in which Melanie visits Mitch’s apartment to try to drop off the lovebirds provides the audience with an interesting diversion. Melanie’s encounter with the man in the elevator, who turns out to live across the hall from Mitch, is a red herring: the tension in the scene suggests that he might introduce the central conflict of the film, by trying to harm her in some way. Audiences at the time who knew that they were going to see a thriller/horror film would have been suspicious of the man, who looks at her with a strange expression and seems to be following her off of the elevator. Melanie’s sideways glances at him as they walk down the hall key the audience in to her fear of him, and some ominous orchestral sounds in the background heighten our suspicions. Additionally, the way that the camera slowly pans up to reveal his face builds the suspense. However, it soon turns out that the man was not following Melanie but simply lives across the hall from Mitch, and our fears are assuaged when he speaks with a kind tone, tries to help her, and smiles.
As Melanie drives up the coast, the wide shots highlight the natural beauty of the area. The film often seems to highlight the natural beauty of the landscape around Bodega Bay, and this attention to nature over the course of the film suggests one possible theory about the bird attacks—that they seek retribution for humans’ destruction of nature. The shot of the two lovebirds perching in the cage and swaying with the car may also play into this environmentalist reading of the film, as it draws out their transportation from area to area as an alien species. In such a reading it has been theorized that the lovebirds are somehow driving the conflict, as the other birds attack either to drive away the alien species or to free them from their cage. Melanie’s fast and somewhat dangerous driving is likely being used to highlight her carefree, almost reckless, attitude. When she arrives in Bodega Bay her extravagant outfit is contrasted against the quaint fishing village, and the stares of passersby and the post office clerk suggest how out of place she is. Similarly, the postal clerk’s slow manner of speaking, vagueness, and incorrect guess of Cathy’s name are intended to demonstrate the provinciality of the town when compared with Melanie’s fast-paced manner. Melanie’s request to hire a boat and the clerk’s surprised reaction further highlight her impulsiveness, which have driven the plot up to this point. She acts with a lack of concern for consequences in the manner of a wealthy, entitled person who has rarely experienced any consequences for her actions.
The scene between Melanie and Annie develops a strange tension, and it becomes clear that Annie has some history with Mitch. Though we will not learn the details until later in the film, Annie is established as a sort of converse character to Melanie. Hitchcock’s leading women were almost always blonde, like Melanie, and Annie’s dark hair and eyes cue the audience into her role opposite Melanie. Though she is also very beautiful, she is dressed and made up more humbly than Melanie, and has a more down-to-earth look that compliments her occupation as a school teacher. She also seems to confirm the audience’s suspicion that Mitch might be something of a flirt, often dating many women and bringing them home to Bodega Bay, though it is unclear whether Annie is speaking generally or referring to a specific instance. When Annie’s face drops as she sees the lovebirds, it becomes clear that she is also romantically interested in Mitch. Back in the center of town, Melanie continues to draw strange looks from the locals, and the contrast seems to reach a height when she walks out on the dock, the boatman helps her into her boat, and shakes his head at her disparagingly. Again, the natural beauty of the bay is highlighted against Melanie’s boat, placing the boat, which pollutes its environment, in conflict with nature. When she sneaks into the Brenner’s house to leave the birds, we again see an impulsiveness and lack of regard for consequences that allows her to feel entitled to break and enter someone else’s property to achieve the effect she desires. We are also again shown her general competence beyond what might be expected of her, as she nimbly gets in and out of the boat in her heels, and drives the boat across the bay without a problem. The ripping up of the note that she wrote for Mitch (which we later find out was full of insults) gives an important indication of her warming feelings toward him over the course of the film—though we assume from the beginning that she likely has a crush on him, she masks it with an anger that gradually fades as they spend more time together.
Finally, the first attack by the seagull as Melanie crosses back to the town opens the central conflict of the film. Though it seems to be a relatively small and insignificant attack, even potentially an accident, Mitch’s statement that the bird seemed to attack her “deliberately” clues the audience in to the idea of birds intentionally attacking humans. Additionally, the placement of the attack raises questions about the reasons for the attacks; the gull attacks Melanie as she pollutes the environment in her boat and has just delivered the caged birds, which are an alien species—but also as she is about to achieve the goal of her ‘immodest’ or ‘unwomanly’ pursuit of Mitch. This first scene then helps to introduce many of the possible motives for the birds' attacks, all of which will continue to be developed over the course of the film. The question of why they attack is never resolved, however, and so many viewers come away from the film with different readings. It is perhaps most likely that Hitchcock himself did not have a specific idea for the motives behind the attacks, but rather wished to offer several weak and unresolved theories in order to increase anxiety and paranoia among the audience, such that it resembles the fear felt by the characters in the film.
