MovieChat Forums > The Birds (1963) Discussion > why did that old guy had a 11 year old s...

why did that old guy had a 11 year old sister?


this movie made zero sense!

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It's unusual, isn't it? There are huge age gaps in my family. My oldest sibling is 13 years older than me. My mother's oldest sibling was 17 years older than she was. Even growing up with that, I always found the Brenner family strange. I would think it was too weird if maybe they had a sibling or two between him, but yeah. Mitch is like at least 30.... He seemed closer in age with his mother than with his sister.

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Hitchcock occasionally toyed with his audience as in "North by Northwest" where Jessie Royce Landis and Cary Grant, little more than seven years apart in age, played mother and son. In "The Birds" we have an unusual-looking age spread between siblings but it wouldn't be that far-fetched if Lydia was in her teens when she bore Mitch, then in her late forties gave birth to Cathy.

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Late-in-life, thought you were in menopause surprise pregnancies. I've known a few this happened to.

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No! I am the baby of 6, my Mother had me at age 42. My eldest brother was in law school when I was born. My parents wanted a large family, but didn't want to have more than 2 kids in college (or diapers) at the same time. Now let it be said I am a baby boomer. Things were different then...

Only the suppressed word is dangerous...
Ludwig Borne

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My parents had 11 children (I'm #10) with a 20 year gap between the oldest & youngest.

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ok yeah but it was just the two of them

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That does make it a lot more unusual, but my high school girlfriend was 17 and had only one sibling, a sister who was 34. Her parents basically just did the whole thing twice.

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Just about the time Mitch was ready to fly off to college, Lydia, suffering from
empty-nest syndrome, decided to hatch another chick.

I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

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decided to hatch another


Mr. Brenner maybe, I don't see Lydia making that kind of decision!

Ephemeron.

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Read the OP's name. Clues are available....stop feeding the trolls!

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First off I responded to the post above me, not the troll.
Second off, It's The Birds, Hitchcock had fun with it, and here over 50 years later we are having fun with it. Still.






Ephemeron.

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Little Cathy was obviously an accident or a menopause baby. Or apparently both.

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Rod Taylor ("Mitch" in the movie was born in 1930). So he was only 32 when the movie was filmed in 1962 (it was released in 1963). (32 is certainly not "old"). So that would have made him 21 years older than his eleven year old "sister" Cathy, in the movie. That is certainly plausible. My father was 20 years older than his youngest sibling. My father passed away in Oct. 1992 but as of this writing in Oct. 2016 his youngest sibling is still living and still doing very well 24 years after my father's death. Now consider the mother, Lydia, played by Jessica Tandy. Tandy was born in 1909 so she, as "Lydia" would have been about 21 when "Mitch" was born and about 43 when "Cathy" was born and about 54 when the movie was released. Again, all very plausible. One thing to note though, "Cathy" was played by Veronica Cartwright who was actually about 14 (born 1949) when the movie came out not 11 as portrayed in the movie.

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Rod Taylor looks a lot older than 32, in The Birds. Hedren, who was the same age as Taylor, looks younger than 32.

On my mother's side, there were 11 of them. The birth years range from 1920-1945. I haven't heard of this in recent times, but my grandmother was married at 15, which wasn't uncommon back then. Now, I believe, it's against the law in most states.

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IMO, Tippie looks her age. Which is a young woman in her early 30s. I do agree that Rod looks older. I place him more at mid 40s.



"Life is like a box of Krispy Kreme donuts".

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My mother is the next-youngest sibling in a family of thirteen.

Her oldest sister was 20 when she was born. So when my mother was 11, her oldest sister was 31.


Simple, really.

This signature really brings the room together, Does It Not?

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Yes, my mother had me at 43 years old (I was a surprise). My next oldest sister is around 14 years older than me, the next 16 years older, and my brother is around 20 years older, it happens sometimes.





AVADA KEDAVRA!!!

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Rod Taylor was only 33 when he was in the movie! Same age as Tippie Hederon.


"Life is like a box of Krispy Kreme donuts".

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