L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird With the Crystal Plumage) (1970) All Critics . L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo. L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo (O P. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo). The cut US print was released in the UK in 1970 as The Gallery Murders and received no. L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo. L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo (1970)
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Italian: L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo) is a 1. Italian giallo film directed by Dario Argento, in his directorial debut. The film is considered a landmark in the Italian giallo genre. It is the first instalment in the Animal Trilogy, and was followed by The Cat o' Nine Tails (1. Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1. Written by Argento, the film is an uncredited adaptation of Fredric Brown's novel The Screaming Mimi, which had previously been made into a Hollywood film, Screaming Mimi (1. Gerd Oswald. The film was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe award for best motion picture in 1. The film was originally cut by 2. US release and received a 'GP' rating, though it was later re- classified as 'PG'. It has since been released in the US uncut. Upon its release the film was a huge box office hit, grossing 1,6. Italian lira (roughly about $1 million US), twice the production cost of $5. The film was also a success outside of Italy, gaining . 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. 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 (Eva Renzi), the wife of the gallery's owner, Alberto Ranieri (Umberto Raho), survives the attack and the local police confiscates Sam's passport to stop him from leaving the country; the assailant is believed to be a serial killer who is killing young women across the city, and Sam is an important witness. Sam is haunted by what he saw that night, feeling sure that some vital clue is evading him, and he decides to help Inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) in his investigation. He interviews the pimp of a murdered prostitute and visits a shop where another of the murdered women worked. There, he finds that the last thing she sold on the day she was murdered was a painting of a stark landscape featuring a man in a raincoat murdering a young woman. He visits the artist, but finds only another dead end. As he makes his way back to his apartment, Giulia is attacked by the same black- gloved figure, but Sam arrives home just in time to save her and the assailant escapes. Sam starts to receive menacing phone calls from the killer, from which the police manage to isolate an odd cricketing noise in the background, which is later revealed to be the call of a rare breed of bird from Siberia, called . This proves important since the only one of its kind in Rome is kept in the Italian capital's zoo, allowing Sam and the police to identify the killer's abode. There they once again find Monica Ranieri, this time struggling with her husband, Alberto, who is wielding a knife. After a short struggle, Alberto is dropped from six stories onto a concrete sidewalk below. As he dies, he confesses to the murders and tells them he loves his wife. Finding that Giulia and Monica have run off, Sam goes after them, eventually coming to a darkened building. There he finds his friend Garullo (Gildo Di Marco) murdered and Giulia bound, gagged and wounded. The assailant emerges and is revealed as Monica Ranieri. Sam suddenly realises that he didn't actually miss anything during the first attack; he simply misinterpreted what he saw: the attack he witnessed in the gallery was not Monica being assaulted but rather Monica attacking her husband, who was wearing the raincoat. She flees and he pursues her to her art gallery. There, he is trapped, pinned to the floor by the release of a wall- sized sculpture of wire and metal. Unable to free himself, he becomes the prey of the person he was pursuing. This climax to the mystery, with strong sado- masochistic elements, has the knife- wielding Monica teasing Sam as she prepares to kill him. As she raises her knife, the police burst in and apprehend her, notified by Giulia, who had escaped. Sam is freed and Monica is taken to a psychiatric hospital. The victim of a traumatic attack ten years before, seeing the painting of the murdered girl drove her mad, causing her to identify not with the victim but with the assailant. Alberto likewise suffered from an induced psychosis, helping her to cover up the murders and committing some himself. Sam and Giulia are re- united and return to America. Release. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 9. Something from each of its better models has stuck, and it is pleasant to rediscover old horrors in such handsome new d. The film was later released on DVD by VCI with the restored violence, but had problems with a sequence of shots referred to as . Later pressings fixed it. Blue Underground later obtained the rights and re- released the film completely uncut, adding an extra shot of violence previously unseen. The picture was completely restored and the sound was remixed into both 5. Italian and English tracks, but contained another soundtrack remixed into DTS- ES 6. Discrete in English. Blue Underground released the film on Blu- ray Disc on 2. February 2. 00. 9. Tech specs saw a BD- 5. English audio tracks in DTS- HD Lossless Master Audio 7. Surround and Dolby True. HD 7. 1 Surround plus the original Italian audio track. It is now out- of- print. VCI announced on their Facebook page that they plan to release the film on Blu- ray Disc sometime soon. However, when the uncut version was reissued for cinema in 1. BBFC to the infamous . For TV broadcasting these scenes were reinserted but the violent scenes were trimmed instead. Scenes with writing (letters, newspaper headlines, etc.) were shot in both Italian and English and vary from print to print. When inspector Morosini meets Sam at the hospital after he has escaped from the hired killer, he asks him if he could recognize him. In the US version he says he could not, explaining he didn't see his face clearly; in the Italian version he says yes because, . The shot of the killer holding the panties was re- inserted before he actually removes them from his victim. Some of the more recent pressings of the DVD have the scene restored correctly, in the proper order.
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