The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
In 1970, young first-time director Dario Argento (Deep Red, Suspiria) made his indelible mark on Italian cinema with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage a film which redefined the 'giallo' genre of murder-mystery thrillers and catapulted him to international stardom.
Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante, We Own the Night), an American writer living in Rome, inadvertently witnesses a brutal attack on a woman (Eva Renzi, Funeral in Berlin) in a modern art gallery. Powerless to help, he grows increasingly obsessed with the incident. Convinced that something he saw that night holds the key to identifying the maniac terrorizing Rome, he launches his own investigation parallel to that of the police, heedless of the danger to both himself and his girlfriend Giulia (Suzy Kendall, Spasmo)...
A staggeringly assured debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage establishes the key traits that would define Argento's filmography, including lavish visuals and a flare for wildly inventive, brutal scenes of violence. With sumptuous cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now) and a seductive score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone (Once Upon a Time in the West), this landmark film has never looked or sounded better in this new, 4K-restored limited edition from Arrow Video!
Streaming Options
Release Information:
Technical Specifications
Supplements
- New audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films
- The Power of Perception, a new visual essay on the cinema of Dario Argento by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, author of Devil's Advocates: Suspiria and Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study
- New analysis of the film by critic Kat Ellinger
- New interview with writer/director Dario Argento
- New interview with actor Gildo Di Marco (Garullo the pimp)
- Eva’s Talking, an archival interview with actor Eva Renzi
- Original Italian trailer
- International theatrical trailer
- 2017 Texas Frightmare trailer
- Reversible poster
- Six double-sided, postcard-sized lobby card reproduction artcards
- Limited edition 60-page booklet illustrated by Matthew Griffin, featuring an appreciation of the film by Michael Mackenzie, and new writing by Howard Hughes* and Jack Seabrook