The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970/Blue Underground Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: C+     Extras: B-     Film: B-

 

 

Dario Argento’s Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970) is the first of his best films and began what became his distinctive giallo look.  A good murder mystery, as well as stylish and still graphic, we have covered the film in two previous DVD editions and are happy to finally see it come to Blu-ray.  You can read about the film in those DVD versions as follows:

 

VCI DVD

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/810/Bird+With+The+Crystal+Plumage

 

Umbrella PAL DVD

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6629/Argento+Classics,+Volume+Two

 

 

Each DVD looked better than prints (especially TV pan and scan copies) that were going around for years and though I had not seen Blue Underground’s DVD set of the film, I was anxious to see what they would do with their Blu-ray and except for some minor complains, it plays back very well under the circumstances.

 

Though the print and sound need more restoration work, the print here used for this 1080p 2.35 x 1 digital High Definition presentation is so color superior to the previous DVDs that it makes them irrelevant.  Red was always the hardest color to pull off (including the blood) and it is much better here than before, as are details and depth, plus framing is better than the previous editions.  There is grain and some noise where there should not be, as well as some damage on the print, but you can really see the vision that later made Suspiria leading to the peak of the director’s work.  This looks much more like Director of Photography Vittorio Storaro’s work.

 

There are also four multi-channel soundtracks.  The only Italian option is Dolby Digital 5.1 EX, but you get English Dolby Digital 5.1 EX for older systems, Dolby TrueHD 7.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1.  The DTS is about even with the TrueHD, but stretching the old monophonic audio (save the great score by Ennio Morricone inserted here in stereo) only goes so far, but both of the 7.1 mixes are still better than the mono audio on the DVD versions we covered.  Combined with the picture, the film comes to life nicely despite limits in both.

 

Extras include international & Italian trailers for this film, TV spots for this film, plus four making of interview featurettes (separately featuring Argento, Storaro, Morricone and Renzi) and feature length audio commentary with journalists (et al) Alan Jones and Kim Newmano.  That makes this version of Bird With The Crystal Plumage the one to own.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo