Welcome back, readers, to Based on the Novel By, our series dedicated to the authors whose works have inspired some of the most memorable and terrifying horror films. This week, we turn our focus to The Birds by Daphne du Maurier, an author whose work inspired Alfred Hitchcock three times in his long and storied career.

As always, I love to hear your thoughts in the comments of these articles. If you have a favorite novel that became a horror movie, please let us know. Perhaps they’ll be featured in an upcoming spotlight!

For now, let’s get down to the business of The Birds and the author who wrote it.

Who was Daphne du Maurier?

Daphne du Maurier was born in England in 1907. Her father, Sir Gerald du Maurier, was an actor and manager and her mother, Muriel Beaumont, was an actress. Her grandfather was the famed writer and cartoonist George du Maurier. She lived much of her life in Cornwall which served as the setting for many of her novels and stories. She was, needless to say, helped along in her authorial pursuits by her family’s connections.

The author published her first novel, The Loving Spirit, in 1931. The following year she married Major Frederick “Boy” Browning, a military man who is sometimes referred to as the father of the British airborne forces. The couple would have three children.

Her first works did not gain a great deal of attention, but then in 1936, du Maurier published Jamaica Inn, a story about a group of murderous men who intentionally cause ship wrecks in order to kill the crew and steal their cargo. The novel was picked up for adaptation by Alfred Hitchcock, though both eventually distanced themselves from the film after its star, Charles Laughton, demanded a rewrite of the ending that suited himself, plot-be-damned.

Her next novel, Rebecca, was also picked up by Hitchcock. The story concerns an unnamed heroine who marries a wealthy widower only to discover that he, his housekeeper, and his estate are haunted by the memory of his first wife. The novel was also one of the first that very tangentially hinted that the author might not be as straight as society expected her to be. The obsessive nature of the housekeeper’s relationship to her former mistress takes no stretch of the imagination to read as sexual in nature, and Hitchcock played this up a great deal in his film adaptation.

It was only after her death that friends and colleagues would openly talk about du Maurier’s sexuality, however. Most considered her to be bisexual, linking her to several women lovers including actress Gertrude Lawrence.

The author died in 1989 at the age of 81 in Cornwall having produced 17 novels, three plays, and numerous collections of short stories.

The Birds on the page…

In 1952, the author published a collection of short stories titled The Apple Tree which included a story titled “The Birds.”

The story centers on Nat Hocken, a war veteran who has taken work on a farm to help support his family. One afternoon, he notices a rather large flock of seagulls behaving oddly, but he writes it off, blaming the recent unexpected change in the weather for the birds’ behavior. That night, his home is attacked by the birds, one of which pecks at his hand.

The next morning, he tells some of the locals about the birds’ odd behavior, but they don’t listen, mocking him for his concern. However, by the afternoon, more stories begin to circulate about odd behavior and the news begins to report that several similar attacks have happened around Britain.

Nat looks out to sea and sees what he thinks at first are whitecaps only to realize it’s actually an enormous flock of seagulls seemingly waiting for the tide to rise. He rushes to pick up his daughter from the school bus and manages to persuade his boss–who has a car–to give the girl a ride home where she’ll be safe.

By the evening, the BBC has announced that they will go silent for the night and resume broadcasting the following morning as part of a state of emergency. Nat gathers his wife and daughter in their home’s kitchen where they eat dinner, listening to what sounds like plans flying overhead.

The following morning, the radio broadcasts do not resume and soon Nat realizes that all of his neighbors were killed the night before in attacks by the birds.

The story ends with Nat smoking a cigarette, facing down the attacking flock, prepared for the very worst.

The Birds captured the attention of readers, terrifying them, and reminding them of the air raids that had come during World War II. The author claimed she was inspired to write the story when she saw a farmer being attacked by seagulls in Cornwall.

…and on the Big Screen

A decade later, Hitchcock once again called upon du Maurier, coming off the success of Psycho and looking for a new project to put fear into the hearts of filmgoers though he would end up changing much of the stories plot, adding a romantic angle and moving the action from Cornwall to California.

The film would serve as the screen debut of Tippi Hedren who stars as Melanie Daniels who, after making a bit of a fool of herself after meeting Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a pet store, sets out to Bodega Bay with a set of lovebirds intended as a gift for the man’s younger sister.

On the way there, she is attacked by a seagull, and soon the entire seaside town finds itself under siege as birds of every shape and size launch a full assault.

Taylor and Hedren were joined by a talented cast including Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy, and a young Veronica Cartwright in the role of Mitch’s younger sister, Cathy.

Hitchcock created an unsettling environment in the film with the decision to use music only very incidentally and instead filling the soundtrack with natural sounds which amplified the birdcalls even more when they attacked. It overwhelms at times much in the same way that Marilyn Burns’ screaming dominated the end of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, seeping under the viewer’s skin and making the flesh crawl.

According to the director, the film was about nature fighting back against humanity for its destruction making the film a fine example of eco-horror long before such a distinction in subgenre would be made.

Sadly, in the last couple of decades, much has been revealed about Hitchcock’s obsessive attitude toward Hedren during the filming of The Birds, somewhat marring what is otherwise a luminous entry in genre filmmaking.

Hedren, herself, has stated that the director assaulted her on several occasions. The accusations were not brought to light until after the director’s death, and though many corroborated Hedren’s story including her co-star Rod Taylor, others have accused Hedren of lying and questioned why she would make a second film with the director if her claims were true.

Have you read The Birds? Seen the film? Let us know what you think in the comments below!