

Gaffney’s friend, Don Howe of Salmon Creek recalls, “A limousine pulled up to Rose Gaffney’s house, and a messenger said that Mr. Scouting around for a house that would do for the main characters, Hitchcock picked an abandoned bay side home owned by Rose Gaffney, a feisty local rancher who had just achieved local notoriety in a successful crusade against PG&E’s proposed nuclear power plant. A famous photograph by Ansel Adams has made the church well known beyond its appearance in “The Birds.” When birds kill Suzanne Pleshette character, the Bodega Catholic Church can be seen in the film for a moment. The schoolteacher’s house next to the school was a facade built by the film crew for the filming. It is, however, privately owned and may not be entered at this time. The public is welcome to view the outside of the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse is a private residence now, though it has been used as a bed and breakfast in the intervening years. Great flocks of these imitation actors were wired to flap their wings for effect. Huge papiermâché ravens were placed on every available surface. With the exception of the gazebo featured in the party scene, the school is the only original building used in the film that still stands to this day. Film crews shored up and rebuilt it for the filming. The ancient Potter School had already been condemned and abandoned as a schoolhouse when Hitchcock discovered it in Bodega. Now we’ll have to subdue the color in the film lab.” “It’s a color film,” he said, “and I wanted it dark and gloomy. When the time came for shooting, however, Hitchcock despaired at the clear and sunny skies. Hitchcock chose the Bodega Bay area for the foggy weather and skyline, which at that time was subdued and open. The film took almost three years to complete before it was released in 1963. Mechanical and live-trained birds were used in the film, along with optically altered film overlay of flying birds. At the time, the special effects utilized were enough to thrill and frighten young and old, and the film continues to affect modern day viewers. Hitchcock picked the towns of Bodega and Bodega Bay to serve as the setting for his thriller featuring TippiHedren, Jessica Tandy, Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette and, of course, the birds. It has come to be known as a precursor to modern horror movies and marks the first time cinematic animals acted in an organized attack on humans. The story immediately suggested a myriad of cinematic possibilities that stirred Hitchcock’s creative instincts.įinanced by his successful television show and filmed with equipment borrowed from the Revue Studio, “The Birds” debuted as Hitchcock’s first horror/fantasy film. Screenwriter Evan Hunter, whose credits include “The Blackboard Jungle” and “Last Summer,” changed the location to the California coast. Essentially a mood piece, DuMaurier’s story chronicles the struggles of a farmer and his family when murderous birds attack their English seashore village. “The Birds” is based on a short story by Daphne DuMaurier. He needed a spot that would give him clear shots of sky, without interference from trees and mountains.

#Birds alfred hitchcock movie
He had already shot one movie in the area: the 1942 thriller, “Shadow of a Doubt,” filmed in Santa Rosa. In 1961, Alfred Hitchcock needed a remote coastal location for his next film. Alfred Hitchcock’s brilliance wove those disparate themes together for his groundbreaking horror film, “The Birds.” Certainly the film animals that inhabited horror films were not intelligent with an ability to act in unison. Before “Jaws” was even a dream the hundreds of birds found in Bodega Bay were not the usual subject of horror films.
