The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
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| L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo | |
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 Poster art for Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) |
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| Directed by | Dario Argento |
| Produced by | Salvatore Argento |
| Written by | Fredric Brown novel The Screaming Mimi (uncredited) Dario Argento Bryan Edgar Wallace |
| Starring | Tony Musante Suzy Kendall |
| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
| Cinematography | Vittorio Storaro |
| Release date(s) | February 19, 1970 (Italy) |
| Running time | 98 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $500,000 (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo, also called The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, is a suspense thriller directed by Dario Argento (his directorial debut) and released in 1970. Written by director Argento, the film is based on Fredric Brown's novel The Screaming Mimi, which had previously been made into a Hollywood film Screaming Mimi (1958), directed by Gerd Oswald. However, writer Brown is uncredited. The film was originally cut by 20 seconds for its US release to achieve an R rating.
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[edit] Plot
Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante) is an American writer currently living in Rome with his model girlfriend Julia (Suzy Kendall). On the night before they are about to return to the US, Sam witnesses the attack of a woman (Eva Renzi) by a mysterious black-gloved assailant dressed in a raincoat. Attempting to reach her, Sam is trapped between two mechanically-operated glass doors and can only watch as the villain makes his escape. The woman, Monica Ranieri, the wife of the gallery’s owner, survives the attack, but the local police confiscate Sam’s passport to stop him leaving the country, because they believe him to be an important witness. Sam is haunted by what he saw that night, feeling sure that some vital clue is evading him, and soon finds that both he and his girlfriend are the killer’s new targets. In an exciting conclusion, Sam chases the mysterious assailant through a darkened building. He is trapped once more, this time pinned to the floor by release of a wall-sized sculpture of wire and metal. Unable to free himself, he becomes the prey of the person he was pursuing -- the attractive, deranged wife of the gallery owner. This climax to the mystery, with strong sado-masochistic elements, has the knife-wielding lady teasing Sam in preparation to stabbing him. She fails, of course, and Sam provides the obligatory wrap-up scene with his girlfriend. (Note: The scene on the advertising materials does not appear in the movie).
[edit] DVD
The film was later released on DVD by VCI with the restored violence but had problems with a sequence of shots referred to as "the panty removal scene." Later pressings fixed it. It was later when Blue Underground obtained the rights and re-released the film showing it completely fully uncut plus an extra shot of violence previously unseen. It was completely restored in picture and the sound was remixed into both 5.1 audio for both Itallian and English, but contained another soundtrack remixed into DTS-ES 6.1 Discrete in English.
[edit] Awards
The film was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe award for best motion picture in 1971.
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