R.I.P. Rod Taylor- Page 2

[Roscoe]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 5:46pm

Lay off Rod Taylor. He's able to make believe his characters are doing and saying what they're doing and saying, and he's got a nice light touch with certain comic moments -- his bemused treatment of Tippi Hedren as he realizes she's driven all the way to Bodega Bay to see him is very nicely done.

When the block of wood known as Keanu or Brad the underwear model pull off anything to compare to it, hell will have officially frozen over.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/11/15 at 9:33am

Not to overplay my fascination with the domestic story in THE BIRDS, but really, Evan Hunter created a most bizarre premise for his truly strange tale, none of which was in the DuMaurier original. And it's reason to praise Taylor, who must hold it together, as one of the most ball-busted characters in contemporary film. Pleshette opens up about losing Rod, not to Mama, but ... listen closely ... to Mama anyway. Mama: Jessica Tandy, with her severe American Gothic meets FIVE FINGER EXERCISE hairdo, 30-something son and 5th grade daughter (who gets a birthday party outdoors on rocks, while parents sip martinis). Rod lives in Bodega Pay with these two, while Ms. Pleshette suffers mightily in near silence chain smoking and choking on her bitterness, a few doors from the honest-to-God one-room schoolhouse. Enter the ice maiden in mint green Head, there to stir the pot with her caged bird (ooh, a metaphor) and Dolce Vita past, skinning dipping in European capitals (I dare anyone to picture her enjoying such hedonism, watching Hedren negotiate a room full of American adults).

Everyone remembers the set pieces in the film while everything I describe above tends to fade. But what was Hitch thinking, taking on the post-Freudian tale of a young bachelor, his Gertrude-esque mother and sniveling kid sister? What was it about this strange brew of city lady invades the provincial world of a California coast town that Hitch thought would ideally incorporate an attack of aggressive birds? Was this some early 60s idea of the new America? A rich single woman is the threat to traditional values? But this single woman, with her Deborah Kerr hairdo, Better Dresses suit, and icy loathing of just about everyone in her path and wake, comes to a family that bears no resemblance to any other at any time. When Tandy puts on her cardigan sweater and drives her truck over to (alone, of course) investigate the soon-to-be-revealed-as-"birded"-farmer, I almost get the giggles. And then there's the other single woman, the dried-up very ripe spinster who on the spot develops a fascination with the Hedren character. Who purchases a flannel nightgown from the Bodega Bay General Store ("Hi, Mr. Smith, I'll have two cans of coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and a nightgown.") And does no one else laugh that Pleshette keeps calling Tippy "Miss Daniels"? As if first names would be out of place in the one-school-room town of Bodega Bay? With someone sleeping in your home? And then we get the butch ornithologist who hangs out in the tavern -- an establishment where kids eat fried chicken and the town drunks imbibe midday -- and waxes on to anyone who will listen about the migration of the Title Characters. Until the entire town does "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," and we get a whiff of Cold War Terror, mothers protecting their children from the invading Hedren in that damned ugly suit. It's a classic movie that is loaded with eccentric detail, most of which is almost at odds with the central premise of the story. By the time we get to Tandy taking care of the PTSS-gripped Tippi (hey, you've got a 5th grader who saw her teacher's eyes pecked out to worry about, Missy! Leave that bitch to your boy), as if some missing part of her has been deeply touched, we are filled anew with questions about these deeply troubled people.

Meanwhile, riding through the fog of sexual repression and misplaced maternal obsession is the singular Mr. Taylor. Somehow, managing to play this strange mama's boy as a normal all-American Joe who just wants to maybe fool around with "Miss" Tippi, maybe on the swings outside that creepy schoolhouse. But damn, some feathered friends almost eat her alive upstairs in his old childhood bedroom. I hate it when that happens, but Rod made it look like such was his lot in life, the challenges of which he could face on a raw day in Bodega Bay. Mr. Taylor, Mr. Hitch did you no favors, but you triumphed anyway.

Updated On: 1/11/15 at 09:33 AM