This trend-setting thriller put its director, Dario Argento, on the international map and began a flood of imitative mystery-horror hybrids which dominated Italian genre output in the early 1970s. Tony Musante, best known for the television series Toma, portrays an American who witnesses the murder of a woman at a trendy Rome art gallery. Before long, Musante finds himself targeted by a mysterious killer. Based on a story by Byron Edgar Wallace, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE hints at the flamboyance which would become Argento’s trademark. This and Argento's subsequent two films THE CAT O'NINE TAILS and FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET (collectively known as Argento's 'Animal Trilogy') were much less horror-oriented than his later work.