I watched my first Dario Argento film about four years ago or so. It was Opera and I found it to be quite incredible. In fact I literally just ordered the German mediabook release of Opera before begging to write this. Since then I’ve slowly been making my way through the rest of Argento’s excellent filmography. I decided to jump to the beginning of his work recently by watching The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. I did this the day after re-visiting Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Turns out they make for quite the fitting double feature.

Tony Musante stars as Sam Dalmas, an American writer currently spending time in Italy. On his walk home one evening he passes an art gallery. Inside he sees a woman being attacked. Sam rushes to her aid but is unable to make inside and instead ends up locked between two automatic glass doors. The attackers flees leaving the young woman for dead.

When the authorities show up the release Sam and check on the woman. It turns out she’s going to be ok. In fact one of the paramedics on the scene describes the wound as just a flesh wound. This is quite hilarious because there appears to be quite a bit of blood coming from this poor girl’s abdomen. Hey, who am I to question a professional?

Sam is taken back to the police station to give his account of what happened to the detectives on the case. Sam does the best he can but he isn’t able to give much information. It was too dark and the man escaped too fast. Sam explains to the lead detective, Inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) that he will be going back to America soon but the Inspector will have none of that. Morosini asks to see Sam’s passport and then promptly locks it away. Morosini goes on to explain that there has been a series of recent killings and they believe Sam saw the suspect. They want to keep him in Italy in case they have more questions.

Sam objects a bit but is pretty cool with sticking around. Since he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon Sam decides to do some digging. As he begins to gain traction the killer comes for Sam. Now Sam must find the killer before the killer finds him.

As I said earlier this is the first movie Dario Argento ever made. The average filmmaker would be very satisfied with a debut feature that is ultimately flawed but shows promises. Argento is not your average filmmaker. The fact that this is a debut film is absolutely absurd. I’m not exaggerating when I say I think this may be the best debut film I have ever seen. Seriously, it’s that good.

The influence of Hitchcock is obvious. The story, the pacing, the suspenseful build up to the film’s surprising conclusion. That’s all there but what we really struck me was the level of confidence Argento was clearly working with. If you take the ending of the movie and really begin to break it down after watching the film it may not all add up to you. I wouldn’t go as far to say it’s silly but it’s not entire believable. None of that matters while watching the movie. Argento has you so hooked from the start that by the time you get to that payoff you’re willing to buy anything he sells. It’s Spielberg/Jaws level stuff.

There are a couple different Blu-ray releases of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage out there. At least two are region A/US releases. One is courtesy of Blue Underground and is apparently incredible. As of now that version is OOP and as a result quite pricey. The other comes fromVCI Entertainment. The release I watched is a region B release out of Australia. It comes courtesy of Shock via their Cult Cinema series. There is no special features but the transfer looks great. I have a few Cinema Cult titles and I really enjoy them. Not the place to go if you’re looking for special features but they deliver quality audio and video. And this may be pretty nerdy but they whole Cinema Cult series come in cases that are uniformed so they look nice lined up on my shelf which I always consider a plus.

Whether it be from Blue Underground, VCI, Cult Cinema or someone else I suggest you get a copy of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Then sit back and watch the birth of a legend.