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A Group of TV Commercials for The Birds, From 1963, On YouTube

posted 7 days ago by roger1 (3614)
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I surf around the net and YouTube looking around for nostalgia, I suppose. Certainly Hitchcock nostalgia.

I hit a nice vein recently on YouTube: A "cache," if you will, of 1963 TV commercials for Hitchcock's The Birds. I didn't count, but it FELT like quite a few in a row -- 6 or 7 perhaps.

The majority are hosted by Hitchcock himself -- with Psycho three years behind him and STILL a big deal, and his TV series(moved from NBC to CBS) a bit hit, HItchcock was a BIG star.

Indeed, I was most impressed by noting(yet again) that his command of "line reading" was almost...actorly. He had a couple of line readings that he ment to impress on each commercial he made here:

ONE: "The Birds is Coming!"
TWO: "The Birds Could be the Most Terrifying Picture I've Ever Made."

Mad Magazine, in its spoof of The Birds (called "For the Birds") replicated a billboard with Hitchcock saying "The Birds is Coming" and added a scrawl: "...and good grammar in advertising has went."

But its that other line -- "The Birds Could Be the Most Terrifying Picture I've Ever Made" -- that carried its own punch

The theatrical trailer for The Birds did not have Hitchocck SPEAK that line. Rather, the statment made a vertical crawl down the screen over the famous shots(that open the movie's credits) of black birds flying en mass across a white screen -- with distinctive BLUE lettering over the whole thing (I realize now that that intense blue over the "black bird and white screen" shots was meant to make sure that we knew that The Birds...unlike Psycho, was in COLOR.

And in this cache of "Birds" TV commercials, most every time the announcer says with great energy and power: "Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS!...in COLOR."

Not that black and white cinematography had hurt the gross of Psycho any(his highest gross) but there did seem to be general resistance to color against black and white films at the studios in the early sixties. "The Color TV Sets Is Coming."

About that announcer. There was a "usual movie and TV trailer announcer" in the 50s and 60s. Experts around here know his name, I can't remember it. Of "late" Hitchcock movies, he only did a voice over for the Vertigo trailer: "Vertigo...what's Vertigo?" and then he reads a dictionary definition of the word(with an ILLUSTRATION of the dictionary page.)

But the announcer for The Birds commerical was NOT that usual guy...it was, in fact, the same guy who announced "Alfred Hitcfhocck's PSYCHO!" -- at least in the "re-release trailers of 1969."

Indeed, seeing this flock of TV commercials for The Bird from 1963, I again felt that pang: what did the TV commercials for PSYCHO look like on TV in 1960? -- did they give away the shower murder like the movie trailer did? If so, more fodder for the idea that Htichcock wanted to SURPRISE audiences with the shower murder is "the biggest lie in motion picture history."

Anyway, back to these "Birds" commercials. Most of them were filmed on the same "library room interior set" at Universal that was used for Hitchcock's (overlong) movie trailer that he hosted. The BEST one ...is not. But I'll get to that.

Here they are from memory:

ONE: Hitchcock in the library with a mynah bird on a stand. Hitch tells us that the mynah bird will tell us the details. He says to the bird:

"Say Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, starring Rod --" but the bird turns his back and Hitchocck give up and does it himself:

"Alfred Hitchocck's The Birds, starring Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, and Suzanne Pleshette. And introducing (camera swings to the right, to the previously unseen Tippi Hedren)...Tippi Hedren (looking elegant but not n her famous GREEN suit of the film, rather the black suit she wears sat the beginning..) And of course, Tippi has a big bird on her shoulder.

TWO: Hitchcock in the library again, Tippi Hedren off screen again.

Hitchcock: "I will tell you that my new film is not only about the birds (camera swings right to Tippi again)..."it is about the bees." (Hitch did try to "sex up" his narrations for the Birds and Marnie trailers, saying of Marnie "It could be called a sex mystery if one used such language."

THREE: No library in this one. Rather, one of those screeching squawking birds flies right at us and "the TV screen cracks and shatters from the impact of the beak."

Cut to Hitchocck (white background.) "Don't worry, your TV screen wasn't damaged. This is just to tell you that... The Birds is coming. (Pause) The birds could be the most terrifying film I have ever made."

Now, about how Hitchcock says that phrase. In the movie trailer, the words are only written so we can imagine a SCARY, HARD reading of the words.

But Hitchcock plays the line reading more "cool", knowing which words to emphasize: "The Birds COULD be the most TERRIFYING movie I have ever made."

CONT

[–] roger1 (3614) 7 days ago

Clearly, this is cashing in on the fact that Psycho WAS the most terrifying movie he ever made and (said at least critic at the time) the most terrifying movie ANYONE ever made. But I think's Hitchcock's phrasing on "could" suggests that he KNEW that maybe The Birds was NOT the most terrifying movie he ever made. Psycho was.

FOUR: Hitchcock in the library again. No Tippi, no camera move to her.

Hitchcock: "(pointing at us) I want you to leave your homes right now and go to your local theater and see my new movie The Birds. (Then smiles) But make sure you are back here with me on Friday night.

A double whammy: the king of terror movies(thanks to Psycho) was STILL the king of TV mystery, too. I wonder if THIS commercial was only shown on CBS?

CONT

[–] roger1 (3614) 7 days ago

FIVE: A slighty silly commerical. No Hitchocck in it. Wide shot of the birds flying across that white screen but sudden cut to Tippi (against a white background herself) screaming. Then more birds.

THEN: Again with the black birds flying across the white background and the announcer practically yelling "Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds! In Color!"

Indeed EVERY SINGLE one of these commercials (whether with Hitchcock or with Tippi) ends by flashing to the truly rather SCARY sight and sound of those birds flying across the screen making noise as the announcer excitedly says "Alfred Hitchocck's The Birds! In color!"

(In the Psycho 1969 re-release commericals all run in a row on YouTube and DVD, you get the same announcer yelling "Alfred Hitchocck's PSYCHO!" exactly the same way, over and over again with each commericlal, as here with the birds. Taken together one can sense the one-two horror punch of Psycho and The Birds in the 60s.)

SIX: The TV commercial is taken from Hitchocck's theatrical trailer (the overlong one where he goes on and on about birds)..the GOOD part..where Tippi Hedren runs into the room and the film goes grainy and the camera zooms in for a close-up on her in very well acted terror "They're coming! They're COMING!" and THEN they cut to those birds and that announcer (Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds!)

..and I tell ya, suddenly l was seized not only with nostalgia, but some long gone MEMORIES came through. Some crystal clear, some not:

Crystal clear: I SAW the movie trailer at a theater with my parents and grandparents in 1963. A theater in Long Beach, California. I recall vaguely understanding that that man was Alfred Hitchcock and he had a TV show but I DEFINITELY remember the sudden chill when Tippi came running through the door yelling "They're COMING!" Was I scared? A little
, sure. But more I was excited and wanted to see that movie. And I got too, some weeks later.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3614) 7 days ago

[deleted]

[–] roger1 (3614) 7 days ago

Less clear: I remember when I saw The Birds at the theater and saw the opening credits , thinking: "this is just like the TV commercials." Word. It CAME BACK, that memory. Thus Hitchocck and his commercials had SATURATED the movie going public with those birds a squawking.

Clear: I've menetioned this before. Our family went into The Birds late -- just in time to see Tippi get pecked in the motorboat. We disobeyed the Psycho rule: don't come in after the movie has started. But we DID come in late, we DID have to sit through a second feature and The Birds starting again , and I DID think the movie sure was boring until she got pecked in the boat.

Less clear: the TV commercials, all grouped together, and with Hitchcock talking and Tippi screaming and -- above all, that announcer always yelling "Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds!" I vaguely remember ALL of that and I think it demonstates just how BIG and MAJOR was in that period from Psycho to The Birds. How ironic that it all pretty much collapsed right after that. Marnie in 1964(the year the Beatles showed up in the US and movies like Dr. Strangelove changed the tone of movies). The TV show goes off the air(at Hitchcock's request, it was still a hit) in 1965. Then Torn Curtain and Topaz to finish the decade.

At the MOVIES, it got bad for Hitch. But not on network TV: From 1965 to 1968, he got BIG TV ratings for the premieres of To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho(on local channels only) and..The Birds...which became the highest rated movie on network TV to that time.

Those old TV commercials from '63 were still working their magic.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3614) 7 days ago

PS. I've noted that Psycho has "the greatest logo in movie history," and why, history wise. Also, those incredibly powerful slashed letters.

Weirdly, The Birds got a famous logo, too but it does little to communicate anything. "The Birds" combines capitol letters and lower case letters, but in a rather whimsical looking way -- almost Disney-esque.The letters are a little "off kilter," too. I suppose it was saying "these birds are a little wacky."

PPS. Here's a bonus, not sure it is worth an entire post.

On YouTube I found a one-minute snippet of actor Barry Foster being interviewed in 1980 about Frenzy. It was a BBC show and they actually showed the opening scene with the naked body floating in from the Thames, buttocks exposed. What Hitchocck couldn't show on the SCREEN in Psycho (naked buttocks in the shower scene) could be shown on TV in 1980 in Britain.

Anyway, they show the clip, it ends and the interviewer says to Foster:

Interviewer: And who was the fellow in the bowler hat?
Foster: That was Hitch, of course.
Interviewer: And that murder victim? Who dunnit?
Foster smiles amiably and says "It was me."

It was me. An oddly funny way to fess up to committing some truly horrible murders(of women) as Hitchcock's most sickening psychopath