The Birds Scene 7 Summary

  • Melanie goes back to Annie's house and asks if she could rent a room for the night. (Annie has a "room for rent" sign in the window.) Annie says yes. Even more awkward.
  • They look up at all of the gulls flying overhead.
  • Annie makes a comment about migrating birds. Can you say double entendre?
  • That evening, Melanie pulls up to the Brenner house (with some sounds of birds off in the distance).
  • She rings the bell and sees the family (Mitch, Cathy, Lydia) coming around the house.
  • Cathy runs up and does the cute Hollywood kid thing. She hugs Melanie excitedly and thanks her for the birds.
  • Mitch says they've been looking at the chickens, which are behaving strangely. Lydia thinks there's something wrong with their feed.
  • Mitch is condescending to his mom, too.
  • Lydia has a heated conversation about the chickens with some guy named Fred. He says other chickens in the area aren't eating, either, even though they've gotten different feed.
  • Mysterious. What could the problem be?
  • There's a dissolve to show time passing, and you see Melanie playing the piano.
  • Cathy talks to Melanie about Mitch's job defending "hoods." She's supposed to be cute and innocent, but, uh, Hitchcock never really manages cute and innocent very well.
  • Cathy invites Melanie to her birthday party the next day.
  • In the other room, Lydia cross-examines Mitch about Melanie; it turns out Lydia has read about Melanie in the papers. She saw in the gossip columns that Melanie was seen jumping naked into a fountain in Rome, among other things.
  • Mitch assures Lydia in his smug, manly way that he can handle it.
  • Melanie gets in her car, ready to go.
  • Mitch says he'd like to see her in San Francisco and starts to tease her about the fountain thing.
  • She insists she was pushed.
  • Melanie admits that she was lying about Annie.
  • He keeps teasing her, and she gets irritated.
  • Ominous shot of lots of birds on the telephone wire.
  • When do you get to see birds actually causing havoc and mayhem, like you were promised?
  • Patience...