The Birds

I am reading a book, "South of the Etowah" by Raymond Atkins. It isn't a  novel, but a collection of essays regarding his thoughts on particular subjects.  It's very entertaining, you ought to grab a copy to read. And if  you  like Southern writing, by all  means, purchase his novels too. You won't regret it.

One of the things he has written about is the movie, "The Birds", one of Hitchcock's  little darlings.

He reviews the movie, so to speak, from a humorous, recently watched view point.

It's certainly different from the way I remember it.

When I was a kid, there was a theatre on the square. My cousin and I went to the Saturday matinee almost every Saturday. Those were the days when movies weren't rated (that I know of, anyway). My daddy never asked what was playing, he just forked over the necessary cash (twenty-five cents) and if I was lucky and he was feeling generous, I got another quarter for popcorn and Coke.

One Saturday, instead of Elvis or Roy Rogers or Disney, it was "The Birds" playing. Who knew? I mean, doesn't that sound innocent enough?

Boy howdy. It was menacing from the beginning. Not to mention weird. And then all heck broke loose and all of God's little winged creatures became extremely ticked off about something or other and ganged up on the humans. 

The very worst was the old man who had apparently left his window open when he went to bed. Bunches of crazed birds swooped in and attacked him, getting the jump on him because he was sleeping.

The gory scene of the next morning showed him slumped up against the wall underneath the window.  He had on red pin striped pajamas and the red in the stripe perfectly matched the bloody, pulpy mess that was where his eyes had previously been.

If a parrot had lit on my shoulder requesting a cracker, I probably would have run screaming into the streets, incoherent for the rest of the summer.

Needless to say, when we came out of the movies, we were terrified and kept glancing up at the sky, holding on to one another in fear, all the way home.

I haven't seen the movie since then. You can imagine my shock at Mr. Atkins' opinion that the movie was totally lame and unbelievable. I guess he ain't nine years old anymore.

Come to think of it, today, most nine year olds might think it's lame. I don't know, and I ain't gonna find out. Some things are just better off left alone.

The only other movie mistake I can recall was the movie, "Lady in a Cage". Now, you would think some parent in the county would have been a little quizzical about that one, but nope, Nada, huh uh, and just not so. 

It was about this handicapped woman who had an elevator installed up the side of her staircase. Some teen age hoodlums broke in  her house, locked her in the elevator (which really did resemble a cage) and began to set up housekeeping, abusing her on occasion, trying to find whatever they thought she had.

Scared again? You betcha. Scared and scarred.

Maybe all our loving mommies and daddies out there thought the movie was about Lady from "Lady and the Tramp" being crate trained.

Darned if I know.