Copious Notes

If you have ever been creeped out seeing a solid line of birds sitting on a power line or hearing a deafening squawk of a flock of birds during migration season, it’s probably because you’ve seen a certain Alfred Hitchcock flick.

That squawk can be particularly unnerving because Hitch made it the soundtrack of his 1963 hit, The Birds, which shows at 1:30 and 7:15 p.m. today as part of the Kentucky Theatre’s Summer Classics series. Tickets are $4 at the door.

Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, and Jessica Tandy in The Birds.

Leave it to Hitchcock to take creatures normally associated with peace, love, and tranquility and turn them into murderous monsters.

It actually is a pair of love birds that Melanie (Tippi Hedren) buys for Mitch (Rod Taylor) that gets the drama started on Bodega Bay. Melanie buys the birds after a contentious encounter with Mitch as an excuse to get close to Mitch again, and maybe endear herself to him.

Soon after she arrives, massive flocks of birds begin staging gruesome attacks on the maritime village, including an unnerving assault on school children. One of the classic scenes of The Birds, where Mitch, Melanie and others walk among thousands of quiet birds in an attempt to escape, was brilliantly parodied by The Simpsons in the episode A Streetcar Named Marge (one of the best Simpsons episodes ever).

In the scene, set at the Ayn Rand School for Tots, Maggie has just retrieved pacifiers that were taken from her and all her friends. When Homer, Bart, and Lisa arrive to pick Maggie up, they must step gingerly through hundreds of babies to the deafening sound of pacifier sucking.

Part of the creepiness of the movie is it doesn’t answer questions. Was it the love birds? Was it Melanie? Was it just a freak of nature? Hitch seems to provide one possible explanation in the trailer, above.