Writer(s): Lado; additional dialogue provided by Ruediger von Spies
Starring: Ingrid Thulin, Jean Sorel, Mario Adorf, and Barbara Bach
What can you say about a film like Aldo Lado’s Short Night
of Glass Dolls (original title, Short Night of the Butterflies)? It was released to DVD as part of Anchor Bay’s
Giallo Collection in the early 2000s where I purchased it based entirely on the
brief synopsis on the back. But while it
certainly has some elements of the giallo, marketing it in this way does the
film a little bit of a disservice; I was expecting at least some blood and
gore, a staple of the subgenre, to help keep me entertained, and upon first
viewing, was massively disappointed when there was next to none.
Knowing that for this go-around, I went in with a more open
mind. While I still feel it falls short
of its potential—it manages to drag very slowly in places, and the plot goes a
little too far off the deep end—there are still moments of genuine suspense,
with an absolutely pitch-perfect, and pitch black, ending.
Gregory Moore is an American journalist visiting Prague with his beautiful
girlfriend Mira. Shortly after attending
a party with Greg, she disappears, and in true giallo style, he teams up with a
few friends to look for her himself. The
police don’t take kindly to his attempts at heroics, and when nothing else
seems to turn up, start looking at him as a suspect. Can he get to the bottom of the mystery,
before it’s too late?
Sounds like a simple, straightforward little mystery,
right? Well, Short Night has one
absolutely brilliant twist: Gregory
Moore is incapacitated from the beginning, discovered lying in bushes by a
groundskeeper and believed to be dead. But
while he is physically paralyzed, his brain functions as normal; so the entire
story above unfolds in his memories, as he’s trying to piece everything
together as his body is prepared for an autopsy. It essentially plays out like a
story-within-a-story; we cut back and forth between his visions, and sequences
in a morgue, where he silently pleads for people to realize that he’s still
alive. Despite the film’s tendency to
drag in parts, there is a great gradual, raising tension between the mystery of
Mira’s whereabouts, and his own fate—as he gets closer to the truth in his
mind, it becomes a race against the clock to beat the start of his own
autopsy.
That gives Short Night enough to elevate it above typical
mystery fare, but I found the ending to Mira’s story be rather convoluted
and…well…stupid. The internet is rife
with conjecture about what happened (well, “rife” is a strong word, considering
I don’t think many people have even seen this), but no one seems to know for
sure, and even Lado himself seems to sidestep specifics. It definitely has a feeling of surrealism,
but given the relative tameness of the rest of the movie, it really feels out
of place. I can see where that kind of
juxtaposition could make it infinitely more shocking, but it felt tacky to
me. The ending to Greg’s story, though,
packs a helluva punch.
On a technical front, Short Night is very impressive. The cinematography is always good, but a
couple scenes are memorable. Ennio
Morricone’s score isn’t befitting his best work, but it serves the movie well. Its biggest downfall are the dubbed voices
and English dialogue…I would have much preferred subtitles, but there doesn’t
seem to be a version available in its original Italian language. As it stands, the dubbed voices are pretty
bad, and the English dialogue is sometimes atrocious. But I guess these are small prices to pay for
the convenience of having this film available on DVD, so I’m at least gracious
in that regard.
RECAP: It drags in some parts, and the English dubbing is
frequently awful, but Short Night of Glass Dolls is still a unique entry in
the Italian giallo subgenre, helped along by a fascinating, original plot and a
brilliant finale that will hit you like a ton of bricks. Gorehounds will be severely disappointed—there’s
nary a drop of blood—but those that enjoy mysteries should really get a kick
out of this.
RATING: 7/10
TRAILER
Agree or not, Mira surely met a death befitting her beauty. I mean, a woman so beautiful lying dead secretly in a wardrobe, with a butler frequently taking care of her dead body and garnishing with flowers, well, now that's something necrophilically pervert.
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