9 More Movie “Mistakes” That Were Totally Intentional

8. The Missing Front Door - The Birds

As he proved in Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock was a master of narrative implication: making things happen in the imaginations of his audience without actually showing them on-screen. That must be why the final sequence in The Birds includes a moment when the survivors leave the house and Mitch opens a front door that isn't even there.

He clearly mimes opening the door, which is then shown to not be there when they walk through the doorway and out of the house. And again, that's exactly what Hitchcock intended - the audience simply filled in the gaps with their imagination and a little encouragement.

The door had to be removed to allow the camera to move through it, so the director used light to imply the door was opened while Mitch mimed. As Victoria Cartwright later reported, when he was asked why people wouldn't notice, he put it down to the magic of movies.