see the journal Alfred HITCHCOCK - MASTER of SUSPENSE for a list of all Alfred Hitchock's movies


Alfred HITCHCOCK's movie BLOOPERS for the film THE BIRDS

?Crew or equipment visible: After Melanie delivers the lovebirds to the Brenner home, the camera follows her as she walks back along the jetty to her boat, with the dolly track clearly visible.


?Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Melanie gets out of the boat after the seagull attack she appears not to have her purse on the pan-and-scan version.


?Revealing mistakes: When Melanie and Mitch are together on top of the bluff at the children's party, each person casts two sets of shadows.


?Revealing mistakes: When Melanie is climbing upstairs we see her shadow on the wall, even though the only light source is the flashlight she is using.


?Continuity: Just before the gas station explosion, gas is shown running into the left rear tire of a red car. The next shot of that car, taken from a little farther back, shows gas running near the tail of the car but the area around the tire itself is completely dry.


?Revealing mistakes: When the children are running from the school while being attacked, the birds attacking them cast no shadows.


?Continuity: After the seagull attacks Melanie on the boat, her hair appears disarranged. The next shot shows her hair neatly arranged again.


?Continuity: When Melanie brings Lydia some tea, while Lydia is in her bed, Lydia's hair first looks disarranged. Then her hair is neatly arranged, the next shot it is disarranged again.


?Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Annie Hayworth is telling the students to quietly exit the school and return to their homes, the speed of her voice and the movement of her lips do not match.


?Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Melanie enters Bodega bay school for first time, we can hear the child singing even when they turn around to see Melanie, and are clearly not moving their lips.


?Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Melanie Daniels is driving the lovebirds to Bodega Bay you can hear the car changing gears from a manual transmission. But the gear shift lever is reflected on the floorboard of the car and has no hand on it and never moves, and it appears to stay in neutral.


?Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Melanie is driving to Bodega Bay, her car is heard accelerating, but her foot is flat on the floor, not on the pedal.


?Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Melanie is lying unconscious after the birds attack her, Mitch gives her some brandy to 'alleviate' the pain. However, in no way should he be giving her this because any liquids given to an unconscious person could cause them to choke, and they should especially not be given any alcohol.


?Revealing mistakes: When Mitch tries to close the window shutter as the birds attack, his hand is extremely bloody. However once the window is closed, there is much less blood showing.


?Continuity: At the end of the movie when Mitch gets in Melanie's car to take it out from the garage, he closes the window of the car. After a minute when he gets of the car in front of the garage the window is open.


?Crew or equipment visible: When Melanie was driving her car to deliver the lovebirds, there's a shot of the front of the car and the camera is reflected in the window.


?Continuity: While in the car when the crows attack the school, Melanie's left hand is by her head when she beeps the horn. In the next shot, her hand is on the steering wheel while beeping the horn, the next shot her hand is by her head again.


?Continuity: In the phone booth, Melanie has her back on the phone. But in the next shot, she is by the phone not front.


?Continuity: After two birds break the glass on the phone booth, it appears that the glass isn't shattered when Melanie is grabbed out of it.


?Continuity: When the gull attacks Melanie, at the 24th minute, we see Mitch jumping from the pontoon twice: once from Melanie's point of view, then a second time from the pontoon. And Mitch's attitude is clearly not the same in the two shots.


?Miscellaneous: There is an obvious synchronized backdrop used when Melanie is crossing the bay in the little motor boat to see Mitch; same thing on the return trip.


?Continuity: When Melanie arrives for dinner with Mitch and his family, the driver's seat of her car is clearly set further back than the rest of the front seats. When she leaves, she gets into the car and we see the driver's seat is now perfectly aligned with the rest of the seats.


?Continuity: During the bird attack on the house, Melanie falls back, almost swooning and crushes a lamp-shade. But, during the rest of the movie, the lampshade remains in perfect condition.


?Revealing mistakes: As Melanie is in the boat crossing the bay, the reflection of the overhead lights can be seen on the casing of the outboard motor.


?Continuity: When Melanie returns to Annie's house from dinner she's offered a brandy. Annie pours her a glass. They show her corking the bottle with the second glass in front of the bottle still empty. But as she sits on the couch she has a full glass also.


?Continuity: Annie and Melanie open the door to Annie's house when a seagull hits it. As the door opens houses are clearly visible across the road, after they look up again from the dead bird the view is now the bay with no houses at all.


?Revealing mistakes: During the scene where the red haired girl falls, she breaks her glasses, however her face was too close to the ground for the glasses to shatter so badly. The cracks on both lenses are also thick white star burst patterns showing they had been already smashed by something like a hammer, and even if the glasses had genuinely smashed from landing on the ground, the damage would not be identical to both lenses seeing as how they landed at an angle, only one lens would have sustained the most damage and left one side still in tact. The glasses were broken before they were even dropped.


?Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Melanie rents the boat to go across the lake, she does not make any payment or leave a deposit.


?Continuity: When Mitch and Melanie run down the hill as the birds attack the children, Melanie removes her jacket to shoo a bird off a little girl. Melanie then picks up the girl and helps her start running. Then from a more distant camera shot, Melanie is running with the little girl, with her jacket on. Then the next shot from a closer camera angle shows Melanie holding her jacket again.


?Continuity: When Melanie is calling her father from the restaurant, her left hand is holding the phone wire. In the next shot, her hand is still holding the phone wire but she has a much looser grip on it and her hand is closer to the phone.


?Revealing mistakes: When Mitch is boarding up the house, he does not even use nails for the last one. All he does is set the board on top of the bottom one and tap it with the hammer.


?Continuity: When Melanie Daniels is sneaking up Mitch's dock to deliver the lovebirds, she looks over at the barn he's in, the sky has a complete gray cloud cover. Seconds later, she looks at the barn, not a cloud in the blue sky.


?Audio/visual unsynchronized: An earlier post states that on the drive to Bodega Bay Melanie's car is "heard accelerating but her foot is flat on the floor not on the pedal." This is incorrect. If you look closely you can see that her right foot is on the accelerator pedal (the top right corner of the pedal is visible beneath her shoe). Also, the movements of her right foot do match the sounds of the shifting.


?Continuity: While chatting, Annie leans against Melanie's car after they have just met. Melanie thanks Annie and speeds off. In the next shot and while Melanie has clearly left, Annie seems to just having left her prop and stands on her feet again. Also the car sound can be heard in a distance.


?Continuity: At Cathy's birthday party, when Mitchell and Danielle climb the small hillock to chat, Mitchell is holding a bottle of colored liquid, probably whiskey. After the camera angle changes, when they approach the top, same bottle now has some clear liquid.


OTHER BLOOPERS

- NORTH by NORTHWEST (1959)

- PSYCHO (1960)

- TORN CURTAIN (1966