The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a 1970 giallo film written and directed by Dario Argento, in his directorial debut. It stars Tony Musante as an American writer in Rome who witnesses a serial killer targeting young women, and tries to uncover the murderer's identity before he become their next victim. The cast also features Suzy Kendall, Enrico Maria Salerno, Eva Renzi, Umberto Raho and Mario Adorf. A co-production of Italy and West Germany, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is the first in what has been called his thematic "Animal Trilogy", along with Argento's next two gialli, The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1972). Argento's screenplay borrows liberally from Fredric Brown's 1949 novel The Screaming Mimi, which had a previously been made into a 1958 American film. An international commercial and critical success on release, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage has been credited with popularizing giallo, an Italian genre of horror-thriller developed in the 1960s, and launched Argento's career as a filmmaker. Plot Sam Dalmas is an American writer vacationing in Rome with his English model girlfriend, Julia. Suffering from writer's block, Sam is on the verge of returning to America but witnesses the attack of a woman in an art gallery by a mysterious black-gloved assailant dressed in a raincoat.