The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Dario Argento has come a long way since his first giallo. With classics such as Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebrae under his belt he is often recognised as Italy's greatest horror director (rightly so). His style that he uses in all his movies is very noticeable here. The excellent score, long tracking shots, bloody murders and the shocking twist at the end. Although Bird with the Crystal Plumage is not as gruesome as his others and the twist not as shocking, he had to start somewhere.

Sam, an American writer in Rome witnesses the stabbing of woman in an art gallery but is powerless to help as he is trapped between two glass doors. The woman survives though, and the police tell Sam she is the first surviving victim of a serial killer. The police keep Sam in Rome which annoys him quite a bit but he soon starts to investigate after someone tries to kill him.

Bird with the Crystal Plumage, although not his best work, is still an intriguing and well-made movie. The acting is good, the score excellent and the twist sure surprised me! This is highly recommended for Argento fans.

4/5

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.

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.

It's of course definitely true that the earliest Giallo's are also most definitely the best ones and the same can be said for Dario Argento's movies. And this movie was not just his first Giallo but also his first movie in general! And what a great debut it was for him! This movie is definitely being one of his bests and one of the better Giallo movies out there in general.

Finally a good Giallo again! I absolutely love the genre but I have to admit that most of the movies in it are extremely mediocre. Absolutely nothing tops "Profondo rosso", which also got directed by Argento but I can at least say that this movie comes close at times and especially considering that this is one of the earliest movies out of the genre, I really have to take my hat off for this one.

Some good mystery, some good characters, some great tension and killings. In other words, plenty to enjoy for the Giallo lovers in this movie. I think that this movie did a great job with its storytelling and the way it was handling its almost constantly present tension and mystery. Also good news about all of it is that it doesn't fall flat at the end, as often is the case with these type of movies.

The movie uses some great and at times also innovative cinematography, which helps to create a certain mood and tension for the movie, which all definitely helps to make this a very effective one within its genre.

And if you still aren't convinced to watch this movie, let me throw in a couple of more names, besides Dario Argento's; Ennio Morricone and Reggie Nalder. Nalder is a great character actor, I have seen popping up in a wide variety of movies. I have even seen a skin flick with him in it, which is all the more shocking once you know how Reggie Nalder looks. Luckily he himself didn't got nude in it but I always enjoy seeing him in movies and he often plays the quiet, scary looking henchman, as he basically also does in this movie.

And then there is also still the Ennio Morricone musical score. Most people don't really know it but by far most of Morricone's musical scores are some weird ones, that still have lots of quality to them though. As does the score to this movie, which is one Ennio Morricone himself is even proud off, since he often plays it at some of his concerts.

Finally a Giallo movie again of which I can truly and honestly say it's a great one, that I absolutely enjoyed watching.

8/10

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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.