The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) was the film that made Argento a european sensation. His murder/mystery T.B.W.T.C.P. was hailed as a success and made him a star. This tense film is about a american who's caught up in a mysterious murder case. He decides to play Sherlock Holmes and find out who did it. A cool soundtrack, nifty direction and camera work makes this one and interesting watch. Recommended for Giallo fans and admirers of Dario Argento.

A

P.S. Watch out for people in brown raincoats who are armed with shiny cutlery!

There is a moment in Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage where Tony Musante's hero is wandering the streets of Rome as evening looms, desperately searching for a missing woman, and the camera pulls aways from him, lost in a maze of buildings, then slowly focuses on a window in the midst of many others, where - we understand at once - the victim's time is running out. It's elegant and nightmarish at the same time, the kind of shot Hitchcock would have thought of.

Argento's debut is breezy, gripping, and - unlike everything he has done from the Nineties on - has aged extremely well: a tight thriller filmed with style and intelligence.

7,5/10

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.