The Birds (1963, Universal, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, story by Daphne Du Maurier). On my first trip to the West Coast in December 1966 with some other KU graduate students, we made a point to stop at Bodega Bay, CA, site of this famous film. I would revisit the site in November 1995.
We all know the story, that enraged birds suddently start divebombing people, driving them to a showdown in a dilapidated house. There is not a lot of explanation, other than that a woman Lydia Brenner (Jessica Tandy; her husband is played by Rod Steiger) insults a bird in a pet shop in San Francisco. This is one of those movies (like Psycho) that starts in one well-known location and moves to a more rural place. There is a particularly horrific scene where a little girl is attacked, and believe it or not audiences laugh. Hitchcock did not like CinemaScope, and here, as in all of his films, he shoots flat in order to focus on close-ups. At the end, the birds go away. No explanation, other than that maybe an eager cat arrives.