The Alfred Hitchcock classic “The Birds” was on last night.

I never tire of watching some of his incredible scenes. A playground jungle gym with no birds, then one bird. The camera swings back to Tippy Hedren smoking and back to the jungle gym until it is entirely packed with the menacing birds.

Lots of scenes like that.

But what I had never registered before is how there a plot devices that are absolutely unbelievable.

The kids are in school and the birds are massing outside.

So what do they do? They take the kids outside to where the birds can swoop down and get them.

Great scene. Dumbshit plot device.

And then after we seen kids screaming and running into town, we cut to the town cafe where they get into a big argument about whether the birds actually attacked.

But where the hell did the kids go? No one would see them be curious? They just disappear.

There is also some way too obvious dialogue involving the outsider Hedren.

The movie is a deserved classic but in some ways doesn’t age well.