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Answers to Go with Susan Smith

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Q. I heard that Hitchcock’s film, “The Birds,” was based on a story by a famous author. I’d like to read the original story. Can you help me find it?

A . The original story can be found in the library copy of “Daphne du Maurier’s Classics of the Macabre.”

In the introduction to this book, Du Maurier writes: “Many of the ideas for my novels and short stories have come to me when I was traveling… Often a story would well up in my mind but would take a long time to mature.

“I have always enjoyed the challenge and discipline of constructing a short story generally based on some personal experience. A great many people have seen the Hitchcock film of “The Birds,” based on my story of the same name though, of course, the setting has been changed to America and the narrative has been altered.

“The idea for the story was born on my daily walks along the Cornish cliffs. I would see the farmer ploughing his fields, his tractor followed by flocks of gulls screaming and crying.

“As they dived for worms and insects, I thought: ‘Supposing they stop being interested in worms?’”

I want to include a chilling excerpt from Du Maurier’s story. One night, the farmer hears his children screaming in terror: “Swiftly he pushed the children through the door to the passage and shut it upon them, so that he was alone now, in their bedroom with the birds.

“He seized a blanket from the nearest bed, and using it as a weapon flung it to right and left about him in the air. He felt the thud of bodies, heard the fluttering of wings, but they were not yet defeated, for again and again they returned to the assault, jabbing his hands, his head, the little stabbing beaks sharp as a pointed fork. The blanket became a weapon of defense; he wound it about his head, and then in greater darkness beat at the birds with his bare hands.

“He dared not stumble to the door and open it, lest in doing so the birds should follow him. How long he fought with them in the darkness he could not tell, but at last the beating of the wings about him lessened and then withdrew, and through the density of the blanket he was aware of light.

“The fluttering, the whirring of the wings had ceased. He took the blanket from his head and stared about him… Nat gazed at the little corpses, shocked and horrified. They were all small birds, none of any size; there must have been 50 of them lying there upon the floor. There were robins, finches, sparrows, and larks…”

Du Maurier is best known for her novel, “Rebecca,” which is a favorite of mine. In 1940, Hitchcock filmed “Rebecca,” with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. He also filmed Du Maurier’s “Jamaica Inn” with Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara. Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren starred in “The Birds.”

The library has both Hitchcock’s films on DVD and the original books by Du Maurier.

San Marcos Record

(512) 392-2458
P.O. Box 1109, San Marcos, TX 78666