L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo

If you are just getting to know the works of Dario Argento, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE is a great place to start. A masterful giallo from, arguably, the best director of the genre.

Filled with mystery, murder, and menace, this film is one of the foundation stones for all future serial killer / stalker horror. Argento's now-famous imagery and quirky characters are on full display, adding texture to his tale of a man (Tony Mustante) targeted by a homicidal madman after witnessing an attempted murder.

There are no dull moments, and Argento shows why he is the rightful heir to Bava's throne...

An American writer witnesses an attempted murder and gets on the wrong side of the attacker as they try to finish him off to keep him from investigating any further.

While not as explicit as future gialli, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage ushered in a new kind of suspense film. It's violent, gory, and overtly sexual at times. The major twist is a real shocker.

Ominous music and lush cinematography override a sparse script to create a Jack-the-Ripper type thriller, which is deeply introspective, moody, and haunting.

Indeed, the script can be treacherous if used to try and solve this whodunit puzzle, which is best handled by removing psychological assumptions rather than by piecing together logical clues. Even so, the murder mystery plot is to some extent illogical.

The strength of the film though lies in its suspense, which is almost unbeatable. It rivals any of Hitchcock's works, to which it is repeatedly compared. The scene showing a knife chipping away at a wooden door is reminiscent of, and more frightening than, scenes showing bird beaks chipping away at a farmhouse door in Hitchcock's "The Birds".

I like the film too because it is so nostalgic. The reel-to-reel tape recorder and dozens of other props and visual cues, the references to philosophy and mysticism, the Morricone film score which at times sounds like the film scores from his spaghetti Westerns, all conspire to transport the viewer back to the Age of Aquarius.

The acting is fine. Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, and Enrico Salerno are perfect for the roles they play.

This is one scary movie. Minor flaws notwithstanding, "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage" is top-notch entertainment for fans of suspense thrillers.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage was Dario Argento's first film and it made him a hot property. Having had very little experience with actual filmmaking, he showed incredible potential with his debut and he took full advantage of it in years to come. Here he explored a lot of the scenarios that would later charectarize his films.

With this film, and particularly his next, Dario showed he had been influenced quite a bit by the great Alfred Hitchcock. The theme here; an american in a foreign country becomes a witness to a heinous crime and starts investigating himself; bears more than a little resemblance to many of Hitchcock's films. An innocent man finds his morbid curiosity getting the better of him and as he progresses in his investigations he puts himself in grave danger. The story unfolds in a similar way to Hitchcock's films, clues are gathered periodically and there's a surprise in the end which is hard to guess, but not impossible.

Argento gradually builds up the suspense and creates a genuinely intriguing mystery. The film never slows down too much and it never fails to be interesting. It's also got a surprising amount of laughs. But in comparing Argento to Hitchcock, Argento manages to create a style of his own, which he would perfect in Profondo Rosso aka Deep Red a few years later. That's of course the visual style. Here he has the assistance of one Vittorio Storaro and the visual aspect of this film is one of it's greatest assets. The film is wonderfully lit every single time and Argento switches effortlessly between dark and dreary visuals to shiny happy images. Argento's visual style is one of his greatest trademarks and it bears some influence from the likes of Mario Bava. I don't want to name any particular scenes, they all flow well together.

Another terrific Argento trademark is the music. Ennio Morricone's score is nothing short of fantastic, ranges from cathcy repetetive melodies to haunting sounds of fear. I think the impact from Argento's films would lessen considerably would it not be for those terrific scores he gets every time.

However, Argento is not perfect. He seems to lessen his standards when it comes to the acting department. Here, the characters are a bit wooden and he doesn't give them all that good lines to deliver. The dialogue in many of his films seem a little childish. And it doesn't look like he gives them many instructions, the acting here (and in most of his films) is shaky and not very consistent. It has been said about Argento that he basically thinks of actors as human props, what's most important is where they are positioned and how they move. Also, it's very annoying how he dubs every film, even the american actors have to do voice overs on themselves.

That said, Argento has more pro's than con's. His films are always interesting and wonderful to look at. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is in my opinion one of his best. 9 out of 10.

I recently bought a bunch of Argento movies on laserdisc because I'd seen a few and really liked them. I was pleased to find that the new titles in my collection are really good as well.

This film was Argento's first as director, and it's easy to see how he got work after that- it's great. It begins with an intriguing premise- that a witness to an attack saw more than he perceived- and pays off with a nice thriller.

My only beef is that I rewatched the beginning after it was over and, well, try it for yourself.

If you liked this and can stomach some much more extreme gore, try TENEBRAE. Maybe you shouldn't watch them back-to-back as I did, but give it a spin some time.