User:Jahsonic/notes on The Bird with the Crystal Plumage  

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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage belongs to the Psychopathia Sexualis variety of Italian giallo films.

Like any giallo, it features J & B whiskey[1], black leather gloves[2] and shiny blades[3] and a host of other giallo clichés such as an art gallery with "cosmic art", men in dark raincoats, and ugly villains (Reggie Nalder).

On the perverted side, there is the leather fetishism of the gloves (gloved hands inspecting the knives at the beginning of the film), line-up scene featuring a masculine transvestite amusingly calling herself "Ursula Andress" ("How many times do I have to tell you that Ursula Andress belongs with the transsexuals and not the perverts!") and a gay antiquarian.

The story is one of a lustkiller. But in the twist ending it is the first victim, a woman, who appears to be the maniac killer. She had been the victim of a maniac herself ten years before and became a lust murderer from the trauma. In reality, female lust murderers are extremely rare.

The soundtrack is by Morricone and immediately I recognized the ... la la la la la ... sequence which was sampled for Edouard Salier's Flesh.