He cut the ending to be more ambiguous (the second recut, actually, following an even more depressing option), but was still left with what he considered a generic thriller and his worst film. He never worked well with actors, either (even great ones), but that’s another story.Īccording to an interview with Alan Jones (published in Profondo Argento: The Man, the Myths & the Magic, FAB Press, 2004), he spent so much time railing against his own instincts and fearing that he was giving in to the producers/distributors’ demands that he ended up accidentally making an overly Americanized thriller, complete with car chases and a happy ending.

The bad news was that Argento ended up wedging himself between the financiers’ call for more Bird with the Crystal Plumage and his own rebellious streak as a young filmmaker. Mike Stone on Streets of San Francisco and the guy in the American Express commercials). The good news was that Argento would be working with a considerably larger budget and a high caliber international cast, including a hot-off Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) James Franciscus, French-Italian star Catherine Spaak, and Academy Award-winner Karl Malden (about a year before his career-redefining performances as Det.

Distributor Titanus and German investors were flush with chips, wanted to cash-in immediately, and pressured the writer/director into making a second “Jet Set Giallo” (the German producers’ term for Crystal Plumage’s specific style, according to Argento). The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Italian: L'Uccello dalle piume di cristallo, 1970) was a huge surprise hit that redefined the young giallo genre, produced a virtual legion of imitators, and left a young Dario Argento in an awkward situation.

Il gatto a nove code film 1971