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In 1970, young first-time director Dario Argento (Deep Red, Suspiria) made his indelible mark on Italian cinema with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage – a film which redefined the ‘giallo’ genre of murder-mystery thrillers and catapulted him to international stardom.

Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante, We Own the Night), an American writer living in Rome, inadvertently witnesses a brutal attack on a woman (Eva Renzi, Funeral in Berlin) in a modern art gallery. Powerless to help, he grows increasingly obsessed with the incident. Convinced that something he saw that night holds the key to identifying the maniac terrorising Rome, he launches his own investigation parallel to that of the police, heedless of the danger to both himself and his girlfriend Giulia (Suzy Kendall, Spasmo)…

A staggeringly assured debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage establishes the key traits that would define Argento’s filmography, including lavish visuals and a flare for wildly inventive, brutal scenes of violence. With sumptuous cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now) and a seductive score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone (Once Upon a Time in the West), this landmark film has never looked or sounded better in this new, 4K-restored limited edition from Arrow Video!

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• Brand new 4K restoration of the film from the camera negative in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, produced by Arrow Video exclusively for this release
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
• Original mono Italian and English soundtracks (lossless on the Blu-ray Disc)
• English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
• New audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films
• The Power of Perception, a new visual essay on the cinema of Dario Argento by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, author of Devil’s Advocates: Suspiria and Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study
• New analysis of the film by critic Kat Ellinger
• New interview with writer/director Dario Argento
• New interview with actor Gildo Di Marco (Garullo the pimp)
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Candice Tripp
• Limited edition 60-page booklet illustrated by Matthew Griffin, featuring an appreciation of the film by Michael Mackenzie, and new writing by Howard Hughes and Jack Seabrook

Great to see it back in its original aspect ratio finally! It means that I might be able to retire the Blue Underground DVD now! (Though of course I'll keep it around for the Kim Newman and Alan Jones commentary track!)

New interview with actor Gildo Di Marco (Garullo the pimp)

aka the character with the speech impediment which must have been a nightmare to do an English dub of! (He keeps saying "So long" throughout his scene!)

It is a great package. One of the booklet essay does a great précis of the original Screaming Mimi story too, making me hope that someone eventually puts the 1958 Anita Ekberg film of the story out on Blu-ray (hint, hint!)

There's also mention in the booklet of more Argento releases upcoming in the future.

Wasn't Cat o' Nine Tails at least already confirmed?

Yes. Alan Jones tweeted that he and Kim Newman were going to record a commentary for Cat o' Nine Tails

Do we not know Suspiria's coming this fall? I've just assumed it was an inevitability with the remake and all though I guess this news they've found a new uncut 35mm print could complicate any planned releases.

Aren't the rights with someone else?

I have no idea, though I think where I first took in that information may have been at Blu-ray's forums so it could well be a load of nonsense. Would not surprise me if Arrow put some large chunk of change down to secure rights for it, though.

A) Unlike every other Argento film that's been up for grabs, Arrow has never released it. Not once, twice, or three times, like the others.
B) There is a BD out from a company called Nouveaux in the UK.

Synapse has of course been working on their BD of Suspiria in the US for like a century now, so I'm kind of hoping their release is definitive after all this time.

I legit believe Synapse must hold the record for longest home media restoration at this point. It seems obscene to even talk about Arrow just swooping in and doing a month's work on that title

I don't think Synapse thought the negative was going to be in such bad shape (missing frames, covered in fingerprints.) On the plus side, their Blu-ray will have the original 4.0 LCRS audio for the first time on home video. (Don May, Jr talked about all this last month on the Shock Waves podcast.)

Cult Films (previously Argent/Nouveaux) still has the UK rights. If they were to release it, it would probably be the Italian restoration overseen by TLEFilms.

Hopefully we should be seeing Cat O' Nine Tails some time very soon, but what is the likelihood of Arrow putting out a new edition of Opera in the UK (corresponding with the upcoming US edition) or even doing Four Flies on Grey Velvet exclusively in the US a la Re-Animator and Creepshow 2?

The 60 page booklet is 36 pages long.

Arrow have already answered a blu-ray.com poster about it : "Unfortunately this is a printing error on our part; it was originally planned at 60 pages but the finished product came in at 40 and we weren't able to update the packaging in time. We're sorry for the disappointment and the inconvenience."

What A Disgrace wrote:The 60 page booklet is 36 pages long.

The content of the book is exactly as described when this was announced, but the font is tiny, probably half that of the Phenomena book at least.

I recall a post on Facebook or a forum stating how they printed the boxes before they got confirmation on the size of the box.

Feego wrote:Synapse has of course been working on their BD of Suspiria in the US for like a century now, so I'm kind of hoping their release is definitive after all this time.

Haven't they only been working on it for 2 years or has it been much longer? I'm kinda worried since their Phenomena release used an inferior source whereas Arrow used a much better one. I don't doubt Synapse does very hard work, of course they do but with the discovery of that new print that is in good shape I wonder just how definitive of a restoration it will be

Longer. Synapse announced that they licensed the title in 2013 and got the tapes of the 4K scan in August 2014 with the goal of releasing it in 2015.

carmilla mircalla wrote:

Feego wrote:Synapse has of course been working on their BD of Suspiria in the US for like a century now, so I'm kind of hoping their release is definitive after all this time.

Haven't they only been working on it for 2 years or has it been much longer? I'm kinda worried since their Phenomena release used an inferior source whereas Arrow used a much better one. I don't doubt Synapse does very hard work, of course they do but with the discovery of that new print that is in good shape I wonder just how definitive of a restoration it will be

Won't a 4k scan of the original elements have the potential to look far better than a print though? This happened with Chimes Of Midnight a couple of years ago.

carmilla mircalla wrote:I don't doubt Synapse does very hard work, of course they do but with the discovery of that new print that is in good shape I wonder just how definitive of a restoration it will be

It's a completely different thing. As Drucker pointed out, it's a 4K scan of the camera negative. As it turns out, the negative sustained a lot of damage, which means they are spending more time than they anticipated. Also, they have brought in Luciano Tovoli, who is apparently providing detailed feedback on the color timing.

It's great they discovered the print, and I'd like to see it, but it won't have as much detail as the camera negative. In any case, we should see before too long how the restoration has turned out. I hope that Synapse makes a DCP available, too.

Phenomena was an unfortunate case where Synapse did what could with the best transfer available to them. Then shortly after it's release, Arrow announces they've gotten the access Synapse couldn't.
Synapse've mentioned in a comment at the below link that there's a European release forthcoming but not from their transfer. No mention was made of which label.

Synapse on that 35mm print.

A print intended for theatrical screenings is quite unsuitable for a Blu-ray transfer (the contrast will be far too high and the colours only slightly tweakable), and it's an option that should only be considered if there's no alternative source. Clearly, this is not the case here.

I'm going to be that guy and ask which dub the forum prefers. I ask only because this is both my first giallo AND Argento. Is there even a preference?