The Birds (1963)

Mitch Brenner: What about the letter you wrote me, is that a lie, too?
Melanie Daniels: No, I wrote the letter.
Mitch Brenner: Well what did it say?
Melanie Daniels: It said 'Dear Mister Brenner, I think you need these lovebirds after all. They may help your personality.'
Mitch Brenner: But you tore it up?
Melanie Daniels: Yes.
Mitch Brenner: Why?
Melanie Daniels: Because it seemed stupid and foolish.
Mitch Brenner: Like jumping into a fountain in Rome?
Melanie Daniels: I told you what happened!
Mitch Brenner: You don't expect me to believe that, do you?
Melanie Daniels: Oh, I don't give a damn what you believe!
Mitch Brenner: I'd still like to see you.
Melanie Daniels: Why?
Mitch Brenner: I think it might be fun.
Melanie Daniels: Well it might have been good enough in Rome, but it's not good enough now.
Mitch Brenner: It is for me.
Melanie Daniels: Well not for me!
Mitch Brenner: What do you want?
Melanie Daniels: I thought you knew! I want to go through life jumping into fountains naked, good night!

---

Melanie Daniels: [worriedly, as she sees a man from the restaurant window lighting his cigar as gasoline is leaking around him] Look at the gas, that man's lighting a cigar!

---

Mitch Brenner: Be able to find your way back all right?
Melanie Daniels: Oh, yes.
Mitch Brenner: Will I be seeing you again?
Melanie Daniels: San Francisco's a long way from here.
Mitch Brenner: Well, I'm in San Francisco five days a week with a lot of time on my hands, I'd like to see you. Maybe we could go swimming or something. Mother tells me you like to swim.
Melanie Daniels: How does Mother know what I like to do?
Mitch Brenner: I guess we read the same gossip columns.
Melanie Daniels: Oh, that. Rome.
Mitch Brenner: Yeah, I really like to swim, I think we might get along very well.
Melanie Daniels: In case you're interested, I was pushed into that fountain.
Mitch Brenner: Without any clothes on?
Melanie Daniels: With all my clothes on. The newspaper that ran that story happens to be a rival of my father's paper.
Mitch Brenner: You're just a poor, innocent victim of circumstances, huh?
Melanie Daniels: Well I'm neither poor nor innocent, but the truth of that particular...
Mitch Brenner: Truth is you were running around with a pretty wild crowd, isn't it?
Melanie Daniels: Well yes, that's the truth, but I was pushed into that fountain, and that's the truth, too.
Mitch Brenner: Uh huh. Do you really know Annie Hayworth?
Melanie Daniels: No. At least I didn't till I came up here.
Mitch Brenner: So you didn't go to school together?
Melanie Daniels: No.
Mitch Brenner: And you didn't come up here to see her.
Melanie Daniels: No.
Melanie Daniels: You were lying!
Melanie Daniels: Yes, I was lying.

---

read more quotes from The Birds...

When Lydia discovers Dan Fawcett, on the wall behind her is a drawing of the gas station explosion by Albert Whitlock.
There is no musical score for the film except for the sounds created on the mixtrautonium, an early electronic musical instrument, by Oskar Sala, and the children singing in the school.
Actress Veronica Cartwright celebrated her 13th birthday during the filming of The Birds.
read more facts about The Birds...