Continuity mistake: As everyone runs out of the restaurant, the bushes on the left of the building that were there before are gone. (01:26:10)
The Birds (1963)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Jessica Tandy, Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette, Tippi Hedren
Melanie is almost killed by the maniacal birds. Mitch, Melanie, the old lady and the little girl drive away from the house which is surrounded by birds...
Bernard Herrmann
More mistakes in The Birds
Mitch Brenner: Aren't those lovebirds?
Melanie Daniels: No, those are, uh, red birds.
Mitch Brenner: Oh, I thought they were strawberry finches.
Melanie Daniels: Oh, yes. We call them that, too.
Trivia: Although it lasts for only several minutes on screen, the scene where Tippi Hendren is attacked by the birds in the bedroom took seven days to film.
Question: When the birds attack the town a gas station attendant is hit by a bird and drops the gas hose he is using to fill a car. The gasoline flows down the street and under a car; a man drops a match and lights the gas causing an explosion. Why didn't the gas pump shut off when the man dropped it?
Answer: The movie takes place in the 1960s, so presumably gas pumps worked a bit differently back then. This is also a small town and probably the gas station had not modernized. There may not have been automatic shut-offs, or if there was, it was faulty.
raywest ★
The automatic shut off is in the handle of the hose. When a person grips the handle they have to lift a levered switch to allow gas flow; the lever is spring loaded so that if it is released the gas will stop flowing. I have looked at older antique gas pumps and they are all the same; even the visible glass gravity flow ones. If that hose was dropped the the gas should have stopped flowing.
michael g