Hitchcock's The Birds - The Original Ending

Caption: The Birds co-writer Evan Hunter talks about the original ending of the Birds that was in the shooting script but was never shot.

Got Birds? (in store window in village of Bodega).

This afternoon, they were showing "The Birds" again on TV. I was screaming like a little girl! So scary! And the good citizens of Bodega Bay seemed to be so ineffective about organizing workable defenses.

A commenter makes an interesting point on imdb:

Younger viewers may get irritated with the slow stealth of the opening scenes and may want to thrash the T.V. when the film comes to its beautifully droll conclusion, but from once those birds start attacking, every viewer is riveted. It was fine Hitchcockian innovation that took this very slim, cock-a-mamy story and turned in to a tense thriller. But the greatest innovation is the film score - there isn't any. No director is more closely identified with the music of their films, but in Birds, Hitchcock created a horror that is uniquely quiet. The great man appreciated something that so few others do - the atmospheric potency of silence, and how, in different settings, silences can differ in character. Yet so many who watch the film seem to forget that the music isn't there. That's the film's greatest attribute.

Last year, Sally and I went to visit Bodega Bay. The birds we saw seemed to be leading quiet, purposeful bird lives.

Left: Alfred Hitchcock as a clotheshorse for a local merchant.

What is it about Hitchcock and his ice princesses - women like Tippi Hedren?

One sea gull, no problem.

Two sea gulls, and I'm beginning to get nervous.