Two Drives: Psycho and The Birds
One of the "roles" of Hitchcock's The Birds, it has always seemed to me, is its role as being "an echo of Psycho."
Hitchcock, in trying to top Psycho, certainly came up with a new plot and new characters and a new setting and (mainly) new set-pieces for his follow-up film. But "Psycho" rather haunts "The Birds" start to finish, as Hitchcock , consciously or unconsciously, re-stages scenes and motifs from Psycho IN The Birds.
The biggest of these is the attack in the upstairs bedroom on Melanie Daniels(Tippi Hedren) at the end of The Birds. The edit pattern (close-ups on victim trying to escape an enclosed space and flailing VS POV shots of the murderous attacker) is EXACTLY that of the shower scene. Except this time, the effects make THIS scene a MUCH more spectacular and impressive technical achievement than the shower murder.
Except the shower scene is still more powerful, because: (a) it was first; (b) the terror quotient is much stronger(a human maniac versus special effects birds; the lonely isolation of the Bates Motel verus a house with a family downstairs) and (c) the victim DIES.
But still, that upstairs room attack in The Birds is pretty spectacular on its own terms, and at least matches the shower scene as a Hitchcock montage death scene(well, Near-death, this time), in execution (and there would be one more ode to the shower scene, years later: the strangulation part of the Frenzy rape-murder.)
But if the upstairs room attack is the big "bow" from The Birds to Psycho, there are a few others:
ONE: The scene in which Annie Hayworth talks with Melanie Daniels at Annie's home, at night. The scene is a match-up for: Norman talking in the parlor with Marion. In both cases, the female protagonist is a "guest"(Marion has taken a motel room; Melanie is a temporary boarder); the host projects a certain isolation and lonelieness, and eventually, the subject matter is: Mother. Mrs. Bates, for Norman. Mrs. Brenner, for Annie. But the issue isn't just "content." It is style. The camera angles on Annie are similar to those on Norman in the earlier film, as is the "separation out" of the other person(Marion, Melanie) so as to "remain detached" from the drama. And both films capture in these scenes, very well, the quietude and spookiness of "night inside an isolated place." We are on guard. Oddly, Psycho has us on guard for some very horrible things about to happen, but The Birds has us on guard for...less? Just birds?
TWO: Before the bird attacks begin in earnest, we have the meet-cute, banter-much courtship of lawyer Mitch Brenner(Rod Taylor) and Melanie Daniels. The through line is that Mitch IS a litigator, and he spends a lot of time interrogating Melanie, and he's not cute about it. He punches quick and hard and relentlessly and his goal is: to expose her lies. ("But you just said...and now you're saying..") I've always loved this element of Mitch Brenner because it underlines something I've noticed about why I don't enjoy the company of lawyers: they won't just let you exaggerate, or "white lie" or save your face. They have to dig in, expose your contradictions, lightly humiliate you. (I'm serious, its like a game to them.) In their professional work(taking depositions, cross-examination), lawyers can be as mean as they want to, doing this. But Mitch Brenner shows us a guy who can't turn it off...has to cross-examine Melanie, kinda/sorta doesn't like her even as he is attracted to her.
The Psycho connection? Arbogast. The staging and staccato cutting and dialogue of several Mitch/Melanie chat interrogations follows the hip staging of Arbogast questioning Norman. In The Birds, you can almost feel Hitchcock's pleasure in " getting to do it again.' Hitch KNEW that the Norman-Arbogast sequence in Psycho was perhaps the most fun in the picture; he brings it back -- with a love story angle -- in The Birds.
THREE: Two drives. Both Psycho and The Birds concern themselves with female protagonists who start the story around 3:00 pm on a Friday(Marion in a hotel room with her lover; Melanie in a bird shop -- you can see the time on the clock on the wall), in a big city. Phoenix, Arizona. San Francisco, California.
Soon, both women are "compelled" into making long car journies -- alone -- to a distant destination. In each case, the ultimate goal at that destination is: a man (Sam...Mitch.)
But the motivations are different. In the "high pressure" world of Psycho, Marion has embezzled $40,000 and her journey is a paranoid one..the "getaway" of an amateur thief who has nonetheless undertaken a major crime(IF she takes it to completion.) In the less "high pressure" world of The Birds, Melanie is compelled to make the drive to Bodega Bay because she wants to deliver a gift of living creatures -- love birds -- who cannot be left alone outside of Mitch's SF apartment over the weekend while he is in Bodega Bay.