Event

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage

Reflects an elegant, enterprising sensibility much given to fabricating sequins from non sequiturs. -- New York Times

Its scares are on a much more basic level than, say, a thriller by Hitchcock. It works by exploiting our fear of the dark. -- Roger Ebert

In 1970, young debut director Dario Argento (DEEP RED, SUSPIRIA) indelibly redefined the giallo genre of murder-mystery thrillers with CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, catapulting him to international stardom.

Sam (Tony Musante, WE OWN THE NIGHT) is an American writer living in Rome, and 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 he saw something that night which holds the key to identifying the maniac terrorising Rome, Sam launches his own investigation parallel to that of the police, heedless of the danger to him and his girlfriend (Suzy Kendall, SPASMO.)

A staggeringly assured first feature, CRYSTAL PLUMAGE establishes the key traits that defines Argentos 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 Ennio Morricone score. - AGFA