MovieChat Forums > The Birds (1963) Discussion > Their hair doesn’t move

Their hair doesn’t move


Have you noticed the characters hair doesn’t move until the birds attack?

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yes.

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They had to put "air blowing tubes" in their hair...

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A "helmet hair" bouffant that wouldn't move if a tornado hit it was considered to be sophisticated and stylish in the 1960s. Women would get their bouffants done at the beauty parlor once a week, and during the week, they'd add more spray as needed, to re-glue any hairs that may have come loose while they slept into place, so by the end of a week a helmet-haired woman would probably have used two or three full spray cans of hair spray. And the men slicked their hair down with Brylcreem or pomade or whatever they used to keep their hair from blowin' in the wind.

Annie is supposed to look casual and bohemian, because her hair actually moves a little in the stiff ocean breezes.

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That lacquer spray could make the hair stink. The singer Dusty Springfield didn't wash her hair often but kept piling the lacquer on instead. In the Dusty documentary it is mentioned that people didn't like to get too near her because she stank as a result.

Annie by contrast to Melanie has become the country girl. Her hair flow free in the wind and she wears coveralls to do her gardening. So she may have looked a bit dowdy standing next to Melanie but I bet she smelt a lot fresher.

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I'm old enough to have seen bouffants in the wild, but I've never noticed them stinking! Eeeew, that reminds me of all the old tales about the huge 18th century hairdos being full of roaches or mice! Or maybe I just never got close enough to one to smell it.

https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.fb3c45353b3d24913bf2db4f4f3af5b1?rik=HxVUZdHx7GelDA&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwww.gogmsite.net%2f_Media%2f1775_head_and_bodice_closeu.jpg&ehk=Gi5KQIIDnfI7uz6LStaF6UpHSs4Vmp8BkZm15Sf5VIQ%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0

And I always thought Annie was going a bit Earth Mother, a few years before that became fashionable, she just wasn't a "country" kind of person even if she did dress down. Some people think she's kind of butch, BTW, but I don't really see it.

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Re Annie being a bit butch. Suzanne Pleshette was supposed to have done a bit of clowning about on set. She donned a blonde wig and begged Hitchcock for the part of Melanie. Hitchcock joined in the joke and told her she looked like a drag queen.

LOL about the 18th century hairdos.

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Hitchcock could be a real bitch!

Sometimes in a good way...

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Pleshette had about 1,000 times the acting ability, charisma, and sexiness of Hedren, who couldn't have been much more stiff and bland. Maybe actually having a personality wouldn't have worked for the Melanie role.

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I don't remember seeing any bouffant beehive hair styles though I'm old enough - I suspect they weren't seen much outside bigger towns and cities. I do remember the chemical smell of perms and wondering why people did that in the first place.

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The smell of perms... are you old enough to remember the 1980s then? Every gal had a bad perm then!

And I kept seeing the odd bouffant for decades after they were in style, you know how some women never change their hairstyles? I don't understand it but it happens, and in fact... around 1980, I once saw a tottering little old lady, whose hair was styled like Mary Pickford circa 1920! Seriously, she was wearing this hairstyle from 50 years ago, with the waves on the head and the long ringlets...

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.nSpkLxqELfFW_KVqyXy9hwHaJ9?pid=ImgDet&rs=1

I wish I was making that up, but no...

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Yeah, I'm more than old enough - I even remember lots of footballers started getting perms in the 70s never mind the girls.

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Mr. Brady on "The Brady Bunch" got a perm one year! Sure, I can see fashionable people rebelling against Big Harispray and getting low-maintenance perms in the seventies, but a suburban dad of six???

Even Barbra Streisand got one, in the mid-1970s, for "A Star Is Born". It wasn't an offense to the eyes, but the perms of the 1980s... lord above they were dreadful! Always uneven, whenever you looked closely at a girl with a high-fashion perm, you'd see the curls would be tight in one spot and loose and limp in another, presumably because the chemicals weren't evenly applied. But that was the fashion.

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Just returning to your point of 1960s beehives not being seeing outside of towns and cities. I would imagine there was a city/country divide at that time where women in different areas would have fashioned themselves differently. In smaller swinging England of the 1960s the divide may not have been so great. In country areas there would have been bus loads of female office and shop walkers travelling into the local town. So you would have typically seen silky head-scarfs propped high on top of those prized beehives. Just trying to keep up with the sophistication of London fashion. Perched on their laps would have been a woven type basket affair because handbags weren't enough for all they needed to carry.

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If you had enough women around with spray on their hair and a real life 'The Birds' attack happened I bet their heads could trap many of them like flypaper.
This could give you time to escape.

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Once the spray sets up, after a minute or so, it's not sticky. Just hard and stiff.

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