The strangeness with the birds starts immediately. The earth was rich where the plough had turned it.

The leaves had lingered on the trees, golden red, and the hedgerows were still green. Until then the autumn had been mellow, soft. On December the third the wind changed overnight and it was winter. Her prose is spare and elemental, and the first paragraph has an authority that brings you into the story’s world at once: Unlike the film-which begins in a city, San Francisco, and has an opening scene bubbling with light, sophisticated comedy-du Maurier establishes a stark tone from the outset. He is married, has two young children, and works part time on a farm near his house. Set along the coast of Cornwall, England, it concerns Nat Hocken, a veteran with a “war-time disability” and a pension. The first UK edition under its original title, The Apple Tree.The original story runs about forty pages. See also: Alfred Hitchcock Is Not as Great as You Think

Indeed, all indications are that she hated the film. In any event, her reaction to Hitchcock’s creation was clear: du Maurier did not like it.

More than one Hitchcock fan regards it as his last masterpiece.īut how did Daphne du Maurier view the movie? You’d think its popularity brought her new readers, people eager to check out the film’s source. His final film taken from du Maurier material would be a critical success and box-office winner, and it’s a popular movie to this day. So by the time Hitchcock’s Birds came out, he had a mixed track record adapting du Maurier’s work. Of course, she did end up allowing Rebecca to be made into a film, and this Hitchcock production went well, turning a big profit and winning an Academy Award for Best Picture. Hitchcock himself disliked it, and it’s now considered one of his worst films.ĭaphne du Maurier (who did not work on the screen adaptions from her books and stories) had such antipathy for the Jamaica Inn, she thought about withholding the sale of the film rights to Rebecca. Jamaica Inn-starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara-did not succeed as a film, turning a brooding, atmospheric historical tale into something comedic and silly. Hitchcock had already filmed two du Maurier works, Jamaica Inn in 1939 and Rebecca in 1940. Several years later, Alfred Hitchcock bought the rights to the story, and in 1963 he released it as a film with a script by novelist Evan Hunter. Daphne du Maurier published her story “The Birds” in her 1952 collection called The Apple Tree.

The birds maurier