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The Telegraph (30/Apr/2005) - Birds remake is an insult, says Tippi

Telegraph (30/Apr/2005)

Birds remake is an insult, says Tippi

One of Alfred Hitchcock's most praised - and most frightening - films is to be remade, to the dismay of its original star.

Tippi Hedren, who starred in The Birds and became known as one of "Hitchcock's blondes" for her role as Melanie Daniels, said: "My telephone hasn't stopped ringing since it was announced.

"It's appalling, I find it so offensive. To take a work of art like that and try to copy it is like trying to imitate the Mona Lisa."

Universal Studios has announced that the film, about a small Californian town terrorised by aggressive birds, is still in the development stage.

It will, like the 1963 original, be based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier.

Hitchcock's film, shot in San Francisco and the Californian coastal town of Bodega Bay, displayed all of his technical wizardry and ability to keep audiences in a state of permanent suspense.

As Hitchcock, who was known as the Master of Suspense, once said of his work: "Any time a viewer of one of my films can say to himself 'I knew that was coming', I've lost him."

Hedren, the 74-year-old mother of Hollywood actress Melanie Griffith, does not believe that any remake could possibly measure up to the original.

She said: "To challenge a monster of cinema like Hitchcock is such a very pompous thing to do. Hitchcock could terrify audiences and keep them in suspense.

"Nobody can make that film today and produce the same level of fear in an audience."

Universal Studios is refusing to release any information about the new cast.

Hedren is convinced that no contemporary actress would put up with the highly unpleasant film shoot she had to endure.

Although Hitchcock had told her he would be using mechanical birds throughout the film, in the last week of shooting she walked out of her trailer to discover that he had brought in a giant cage of ravens. For a week, Hedren lay on the floor filming the final scenes, her body covered by a host of birds unable to fly away from her because they had been attached to her dress by elastic strings.

Only when one of the ravens flew directly into her face did Hedren tell the director she could not take any more.

"I was an unknown when I did that film and I think, even then, he couldn't have got anybody else more famous to do it.

"What young actress would endure that today? They'll probably just use special effects."

Nor, it seems, would she be any more impressed if the role were kept in the family and given to her daughter.

"If Melanie wanted to do it, then fine, but I think that anybody taking on this project is in for some surprises." In 1998, the director Gus Van Sant remade Hitchcock's 1960 thriller Psycho, with Vince Vaughn taking the Anthony Perkins role of Norman Bates and Anne Heche as Marion Crane, the part originally played by Janet Leigh.

The remake was notable for Van Sant's decision to mimic the original frame by frame, but it was not a critical success.

Hedren said that a new version of The Birds was liable to meet with the same response.

She said: "It's laughable and they're opening themselves up to terrible criticism."

And what does she imagine the man himself, with whom she also made Marnie a year later, would make of this venture?

"I think Hitch would call them tiny tots trying to make movies and ask why they don't have an original thought in their heads," Hedren said.

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