Summary
When Melanie steps onto the dock, one side of her face is covered in blood from the cut. Mitch takes her across the boatyard to the office, and when someone passes them and asks what happened, Mitch tells him that a gull hit her. The office in the boatyard is closed for lunch, so Mitch takes her up to The Tides, the main restaurant in the center of town. As they walk, he tells her that she might need a tetanus shot, but she tells him she had a booster before she went abroad in the spring. They walk into the restaurant, and most of the customers turn to stare. Deke, who runs the restaurant, rushes over to help, asks Mitch what happened, and sends his wife, Helen, to get antiseptic and bandages. Deke is worried that Melanie hurt herself on his property, and Mitch assures him that she will not sue the restaurant. While Mitch dresses her cut, he and Melanie have a chance to talk for the first time since they met in the pet shop. She asks him about his law practice, and jokes about his earlier expressed desire to put her behind bars. He asks why she came up to Bodega Bay, and she answers by asking if he saw the birds. When he asks if she came all the way just to bring the birds, she defensively answers that she was coming up anyway to see a friend, and when Mitch asks who the friend is, Melanie says Annie Hayworth. Mitch is surprised, and skeptical, and questions Melanie about her relationship with Annie, who says they met in college. He tells her that he thinks she came up just to see him, and starts flirting with her, prodding her about how much she must like him to have gone through all the trouble of finding him. She tells him that she loathes him, and wrote him a whole letter about it but tore it up, and she refuses to tell him what it said.
While they are talking, Lydia Brenner, Mitch's mother, enters the restaurant, walks toward Mitch, and asks him what he is doing in the town. Mitch tells her he had to acknowledge a delivery, and introduces her to Melanie, who he says delivered the birds for Cathy. Lydia seems suspicious of Melanie, and when Mitch reveals that the birds she brought are lovebirds, her distrust grows. Mitch then invites Melanie over for dinner but Melanie is resistant, offering only “maybe,” in response to the invitation. She tells him she is staying with Annie, and Annie might have made plans for the two of them. Mitch knows this is a lie but pretends to play along and offers to pick her up from Annie’s, but Melanie insists she can find her own way.
In the next scene, Melanie pulls up in front of Annie’s house and rings the bell. When Annie answers the door, Melanie asks her if she can rent one of Annie’s rooms for a single night (Annie has a ‘Room for Rent’ sign in a window). Annie is reluctant but Melanie is insistent, so Annie eventually agrees. When Annie sees that all Melanie has for luggage is one paper bag with a few items, Melanie explains that she had not planned to stay the night and just picked up a few things at the general store. Annie looks dismayed and asks if something unexpected came up, and Melanie says yes. As they walk inside, Annie comments on a huge flock of birds that is passing overhead, and Melanie turns to look up at them suspiciously.
In the next scene it is night time and the birds are still cawing as Melanie pulls up to the Brenners’ house. She adjusts her makeup in the car window and walks up to the house. She rings the bell but no one answers, so she walks back down from the front step and sees Mitch, Lydia, and Cathy walking up the driveway from the barn. When the family spots Melanie, Cathy runs up to her to hug her, and thanks her for the lovebirds. Mitch thanks her for coming and tells her dinner will be ready soon, and explains that the family was out back having a look at the chickens because something seems to be wrong with them and they will not eat. Lydia insists that nothing is wrong with them and it is just bad feed, and says she will call Fred Brinkmeyer, who sold her the feed. Inside, Mitch offers Melanie a drink while Lydia calls Fred. We hear Lydia’s side of the conversation with Fred, as she tells him that there is something wrong with the feed. Though we do not hear what Fred is saying, it is clear that he offers her some information to suggest that an illness is going around the chickens in the area. Lydia tells him she will go see Dan Fawcett the next day, who is having similar problems with his chickens, according to Fred. She hangs up and explains the situation to the rest of the room, and asks Mitch if he thinks there might be something making the chickens sick.
In the next scene, dinner has ended and Melanie is playing piano while Mitch and Lydia clear the table. Cathy stands over Melanie at the piano, and asks how she knew that Cathy wanted lovebirds. When Melanie says that Mitch told her, Lydia asks from the next room whether Melanie knew Mitch in San Francisco, to which Melanie responds, ‘not exactly.’ Cathy tells Melanie more about Mitch’s work in San Francisco, saying that he knows a lot of criminals because he defends them. She talks about a specific client who shot his wife six times, and when Melanie asks Mitch why he did it, Mitch responds that the wife changed the channel when her husband was watching a ball game. Cathy seems to take a liking to Melanie and begs her to come to her birthday party, which Cathy knows all about even though it is supposed to be a surprise.
In the kitchen, Lydia questions Mitch about Melanie as they clean up. Mitch answers her questions with some vagueness, and jokingly asks Lydia where she went to law school in response to her cross-examination. Lydia comments on Melanie’s wealth, and expresses dismay at Melanie’s shenanigans that often end up in the gossip columns, including an incident the previous summer in which she jumped naked into a fountain in Rome. Mitch dismisses his mother’s concerns and tells her that he can ‘handle Melanie Daniels’ himself. This scene shows how close Mitch is with his mother, and how protective and caring he is of her. On the other hand, it also shows how much Lydia depends on him for support, which explains the degree to which she worries about Melanie. Additionally, we hear a story of extreme violence against a woman who crosses her husband, or acts out of her place as his subordinate. If we read the bird attacks as a punishment for Melanie’s acting out of her gender expectations, this story serves a dark purpose—the light, almost joking tone with which Mitch tells the story normalizes violence against such rule-breakers, and the story may serve to foreshadow the violence that will come to Melanie and the town because of her actions.
Later, Mitch walks Melanie to her car and tells her he would like to see her again. He jokes that they could go swimming together, and refers to the gossip columns. Melanie understands that he is talking about the incident in Rome, and looks disappointed. He continues his joke, but she interrupts him to assert that she was pushed into the fountain fully clothed, and the gossip column that ran the story only did it because they were rivals with her father. Mitch does not take her complaint seriously, and Melanie becomes more frustrated. Mitch goes on to question her about her relationship with Annie Hayworth, which she acknowledges was a lie, and about the letter she wrote him, which she says she did write. He asks her what it said, and she tells him that she wrote that the lovebirds might help his personality, but she tore it up because it seemed stupid and foolish. He compares that to her jumping into the fountain, and indicates he does not believe her version of that story. She becomes angry, does not agree to see him again, and drives off. He smiles as she drives away until he notices an abnormally large group of birds perched on some wires near his house. He stares at them, concerned, before walking back inside.
Melanie arrives back at Annie’s house and lets herself in. Annie can tell that she is upset, asks Melanie if her cut from the gull is starting to bother her, and offers her some brandy. Melanie tells her it is not the cut, but does not say what is bothering her. She also asks Annie to call her Melanie instead of ‘Ms. Daniels.’ Annie seems somewhat pleased that Melanie seems to have had a bad time at dinner, and asks if Melanie met Lydia, but Melanie asks to change the subject. They start making small talk about Bodega Bay, and Melanie asks Annie how she ended up there. Annie tells her that Mitch invited her up for a weekend a long time ago and she never left. Melanie assures her that there is nothing happening between her and Mitch, and Annie sorrowfully indicates that perhaps no girl will ever have something with Mitch. Melanie asks what Annie means by this, and Annie explains that she and Mitch got pretty serious four years earlier and he brought her home to meet his mother, but Lydia was cold and distant, and made it very difficult for Annie to be around because she did not want Mitch to abandon her. Melanie says that it sounds like Lydia is a jealous, possessive mother, but Annie disagrees and thinks that it is more based on a fear of abandonment rather than simply losing Mitch. Annie then goes on to explain that she and Mitch broke up soon after, but she moved to Bodega Bay to be close to Mitch because she still likes him and did not want to lose his friendship.
A phone call interrupts their conversation and Annie answers. She hands the phone to Melanie, telling her that it is Mitch. Melanie takes the phone and we only hear her side of the conversation—she seems agitated with him, and tells him he does not need to apologize and she is not angry. She turns down an invitation to Cathy’s party, saying she needs to return to San Francisco, but agrees that she does not want to disappoint Cathy. While she is on the phone, she looks over at Annie who is smoking and looking away from her, and seems deflated. She finally agrees to go to the party and hangs up the phone. She tells Annie that she is going to Cathy’s party, and Annie tells her that she will be there as well to help run the party. Melanie says she should go to bed and takes out the nightgown she bought at the general store to show Annie. She asks Annie if she should go to the party, and Annie tells her that she should go if she wants to go, even if Lydia is not keen on her. A knock at the door interrupts their conversation, and they open the door to find a dead seagull on the ground below them. Annie comments that it must have lost its way in the dark and crashed into the door, but Melanie points out that it is not dark enough for that because of the full moon. They stare at each other in wonder.
Analysis
Mitch’s care for Melanie after she is attacked by the gull shows a moment of tenderness between them that demonstrates their underlying desire for each other despite their outward playful animosity. Melanie’s defensiveness when Mitch pressing her about why she came to Bodega Bay also serves to highlight the unusualness of a young woman pursuing a man in such a way, and helps to characterize Mitch as confident in his charm and attractiveness to women. Further, we see a caring and nurturing side of him, which will come out further as he struggles to protect Melanie, Lydia, Cathy, and Annie later in the film. Additionally, Mitch’s reaction when Melanie lies that she is staying with Annie further suggests a history between Annie and himself. Again, though Melanie has proven herself intelligent, resourceful, and a skilled liar, Mitch is always one step ahead of her and figures out her lie. When Lydia enters the restaurant we are introduced to an important secondary conflict of the film, between Lydia and Melanie, as the protective mother and prospective girlfriend of Mitch, respectively. Everything that Lydia does in this first scene contributes to her characterization as overprotective of Mitch, doting on him, and distrustful of Melanie. When she enters it seems as though she purposefully turns her back on Melanie when she talks to Mitch, and is reluctant to meet her even though it is clear that Mitch has been sitting with her at the restaurant. She looks suspicious during the entire encounter, and seems agitated by Mitch’s invitation to Melanie to come to dinner. She will continue giving Melanie these suspicious expressions throughout the film. Further, it is interesting to note that this scene features many close-ups—this is intended to draw our attention the expressions on each character’s face, as the scene is important for their characterization. Hitchcock employs the close-up in this way often, showing a character’s face in detail if the emotion he or she expresses is particularly important.
Melanie’s decision to stay at Annie’s house may be a practical way for her to back up her lie to Mitch, though it does not seem unlikely that she would also want to stay with Annie to learn more about her connection to Mitch, and because she has taken a personal liking to her (though there is some tension between them, they are amiable and seem to enjoy speaking with each other). Melanie’s last-minute decision to stay in Bodega Bay for the night again draws out her impulsive character, but also highlights a new feature of her personality: she is not as fussy as one might expect from such a well-dressed, wealthy, society woman. We catch a glimpse of this when she deftly and unhesitatingly climbs into the small, dirty boat earlier in the film, but it becomes more clear when she decides to stay overnight with only a toothbrush and nightgown that she purchased from the general store. When Melanie looks suspiciously at the birds that Annie thinks are migrating, it gives another example of her clairvoyant suspicions about the birds; though Melanie may have more reason to mistrust the birds after she was hit by one on the boat, her skyward glance here hints at the larger attacks that will come later.
The next scene delivers the first evidence that there might be something wrong with birds of all species, rather than just gulls, when we learn that the Brenners’ chickens will not eat. However, it is interesting to note that Melanie does not seem to connect this incident to any of her earlier suspicions about birds or the attack on the boat—this seems to indicate that her concern about the birds is intended more as an expository tool than as evidence of her intelligence. In this scene, the chickens foreshadow coming events sufficiently through Lydia’s phone call and her concerned looks, and so it is not necessary to the exposition for Melanie to seem overly concerned with the matter like she has been earlier in the film. A reading of these theatrical, worried expressions as simply serving to foreshadow or build tension, rather than convey character traits, is consistent with their placement at the very end of each scene in which they occur. However, it also seems that Hitchcock wished to highlight Melanie’s and Mitch’s lack of concern over the chickens, as he places them in the back of the scene to show them not paying any attention to the phone call, occupying themselves with other conversation. Therefore, he may have intended to show how, though they can guess at something sinister happening with the gulls, they were unable to grasp the gravity of the situation by not connecting the different incidents across different species of birds until it is too late.
Outside after dinner, we hear Melanie’s side of the story about the fountain in Rome. She gives us a more sympathetic understanding of that story, and through it, of her. Though she may often be seen as reckless, exhibitionist, or wild, she may be portrayed that way unfairly due to her family connections and public visibility. As viewers who have come to sympathize and identify with her in some ways, the audience is intended to appreciate this defense of her character and accept her version of the story. We also see an unpleasant side to Mitch, who takes the ‘charming’ antagonistic flirtation too far, offending Melanie in a more severe way than he managed to do at any point earlier in the film. This may be intended to highlight a level of immaturity in Mitch, which we have already seen in his somewhat childlike way of flirting, and which here, in its proximity to the scene with his mother, draws out the unusualness of his closeness with his mother despite now being a grown man.
Additionally, we are given yet another example of a suspicious glance toward a flock of birds, this time by Mitch, at the very end of the scene. Because the birds that he stares at are stationary, the camera angle is used to create tension—the camera gazes up at the flock of birds, who, shrouded in darkness, tower ominously above Mitch and the viewer. Perching birds will often be shown from such an angle over the rest of the film, and the angle also gives new meaning to several of the angles from which we view the characters: we often are shown characters from above, as if from the angle of the birds as they are perching or attacking (for example, when Melanie arrives at the Brenners’ house at the beginning of this dinner). Such angles reduce humans to smaller, weaker animals at the hands of the attacking birds, and raise the status and power of the birds over the humans, as well as build the audience’s fear of the animals.
The scene between Annie and Melanie after Melanie returns from dinner serves simultaneously to explain the tensions between the two of them and to begin to ease them. Annie’s sharing of her history with Mitch, rather than upsetting Melanie, brings them closer together because of the shared experience of their difficulties with Lydia. Though it does not completely ease all tensions, getting the secret out in the open between the two of them allows for more comfort between them and helps them to understand each other better. From this moment onward in the film, Melanie and Annie will actually become allies, brought together by the disaster even if they perhaps would have become enemies or competitors under more normal circumstances. We still catch glimpses of Annie’s sorrow at Mitch’s interest in Melanie in this scene and throughout the film, but they are often soon overshadowed by some issue with the birds. In this scene, the tension between them is broken by the crashing of a gull into the door. Again, Melanie’s observation that it is not dark enough for the gull to have gotten lost and their concerned looks foreshadow the attacks of gulls on people’s homes and cars.
