Sam was about to decamp to New York with his Brit girlfriend but the detective who interviews him takes his passport. The case is so baffling that anyone could be involved. Sam has to clear his name but also is intrigued to play detective, himself, haunted by the notion that he saw something that the excitement erased. The killer is picking off women around the city. Sam is about to enter a labyrinth of intrigue, danger and after dark puzzles. Does he have the key?
The Giallo genre was about a decade old when Dario Argento entered the scene with this film. Argento had already been a film critic and had made a good start at screen writing, collaborating with the likes of Bertolucci and Leone (the tense opening of Once Upon a Time in the West has his stamp all over it). Italy had already shown its endless appetite for the violence and engaging mysteries of Giallo as dished up by the great Mario Bava among many others. These were shot for international markets and, as with all Italian film production at the time, made with the intention of dubbing the dialogue. Argento wrote his own adaptation of the novel The Screaming Mimi for his debut.
While the gallery attack scene is not the very opening it's the way the film is recalled opening, with a situation straight out of Hitchcock as a would be hero is prevented from helping and must watch an act of violence from a trap. It's a nightmare situation and won't be the last one this movie offers.
Actually, that's a point: Bird is so stuffed to the gills with Giallo quirks that it would be considered a postmodern parody if it had been made now. the cross-dressing lineup guy giving better than he gets, the Breughel style naive painting of the sexual assault, the ugly but funny comedy scene with the artist, the too-urbane detective, right down to the hit man in the bright yellow leather jacket (Giallo is Italian for yellow, Argento even made a later movie with that as the title) which has one of the best comic relief transitions before getting scary again. Argento isn't trying to send anything up, though, he is gleefully picking genre tropes off the shelf and setting them off as perfect plot bombs. Hitchcock himself dismissed the plot drivers of his films with the joke about the McGuffin (Google it) he much preferred the visual puns, social commentary and mechanics of suspense. See also everyone who made a Giallo except that Argento even more, outdoing the great Bava himself.
So, if anything, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage pays nothing but service to the genre it declares. That said, it is not a series of ticks on a checklist. Argento warms everything up with real humour and builds a nocturnal Rome that feels of its time but also darkly medieval. On board as cinematographer is Vittorio Storaro who also lensed The Conformist, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now among many others, having a deadly sense of the effects of colour on the psyche. Bird still looks like a zillion dollars. And while we're talking collaborators, let's throw in the great Ennio Morricone who provides a score that mixes cute girl pop with avant orchestral noise motifs and electronica. This movie sounds scared.
As a sub-genre of crime fiction The Bird With the Crystal Plumage still delivers and in a much more insistent manner than most of them. Argento perfected the traditional Giallo with his next string of films, adding more peculiar style each time until Deep Red a few years on which all but rendered the genre impossible to top. After some extraordinary horror outings he then returned but to decreasing effect as some of the later entries could not outgrow the limitations of the Giallo's heyday. There are always exceptions (Opera, The Stendhal Syndrome) but the more recent films have felt like the first ones never did: routine. Before that, back in 1970, he climbed to the peak of his adopted genre on his first go. If you can find this, watch it.
Viewing notes: We watched Arrow's 4K presentation of this and it is stellar. In the convivium and sipping of bubbly stuff we all got a little lost. As these movies were never shot with direct sound and intended to be dubbed even in their native Italian it's not a big deal unless you really want ot hear actor's own voices (E.g. David Hemmings in Deep Red). The subtitles might prove a boon, here. I can't find it for purchase or rent on any streamer. If you are feeling adventurous you can get a physical copy from a few boutique labels. Maybe Shudder or Tubi in the future.