Tweet
Released by: Celluloid Dreams
Released on: April 29th, 2025.
Director: Aldo Lado
Cast: Mario Adorf, Barbara Bach, Jean Sorel, Ingrid Thulin
Year: 1971
Purchase From Amazon
Short Night Of Glass Dolls – Movie Review:
Written and directed by Aldo Lado (Night Train Murders), 1971's Short Night Of Glass Dolls (also known as Malastrana) tells the strange story of Gregory (Jean Sorel of Fox With A Velvet Tail and A Lizard In A Woman's Skin), an American reporter who is working in Prague and whose body is found dead in a garden as the movie opens. The corpse is brought to the hospital and wheeled down to the morgue for an autopsy but as this happens we hear Gregory's mind, evidently still alive somehow, pontificating on how he came to be murdered.
It starts with Mira (Barbara Bach of The Unseen), Gregory's beautiful girlfriend who goes missing under very unusual circumstances. When he comes home and finds she isn't there he starts searching the city for her but he comes up empty-handed. As he starts properly investigating her disappearance he comes to understand that Mira's disappearance mirrors several other similar cases that have taken place in the area in the recent past. As he begins to put together the pieces of this strange puzzle he uncovers a conspiracy of sorts… the kind you shouldn't get too close too.
Lado's directorial debut is a very good film indeed. While it's not necessarily a Giallo in the traditional sense but it has enough in common with the genre that it should appeal to fans. What it lacks in gratuitous sex and violence it more than makes up for with an interesting and inventive premise told from an unlikely point of view and a fantastic ending that makes the deliberate buildup all worthwhile. The story is also very well written. As Gregory goes about his investigation and encounters the various players involved or possibly involved in the plot, each one is given sufficient motivation as to have involvement in what happened to Mira. There's nobody you meet in the film and immediately say 'nope, not it' and dismiss and this helps aid a lot in terms of building suspense and not only holding your attention but in keeping you thinking throughout the film.
Jean Sorel makes for a dashing enough male lead here. He looks good on camera and carries himself well in the picture. As such, it's never a stretch to buy him in the part and it's fair to say that this is actually one of his better and more nuanced performances. Barbara Bach looks great here and does fine in her role but it's not exactly a starring turn but more of a cameo. The camera loves her though, and Lado makes good use of her screen time.
Just as interesting are the locations. Lado makes excellent use of Prague's streets and uses some distinctive color choices to ensure that there's always something interesting on screen to look at. The story toys with the theme of the bourgeoisie exploiting the proletariat class, so setting the film in the then communist nation is an appropriate decision and one that ties into the way that blood is used throughout the film. Adding to all of this is one of Ennio Morricone's fantastic scores, a collection of compositions that perfectly heighten the tension in the film and that are just as arresting and evocative on their own as they are when incorporated into the film itself. It's a bit slow and a little out there by the time it's all over, but for attentive viewers with a taste for the unusual, Short Night Of Glass Dolls is top notch.
Short Night Of Glass Dolls – UHD/Blu-ray Review:
Celluloid Dreams brings Short Night Of Glass Dolls to UHD framed at 2.35.1 in an HVEC encoded 2160p transfer with HDR10 looking really impressive. Taken from a new 4k transfer and full restoration, the transfer is spotless. Although natural film grain is present, but it always resolves properly, never getting clumpy or proving distracting but instead just looking like proper film. Color reproduction is rock solid and flesh tones look lifelike and natural throughout. Black levels are nice and deep, and detail is consistently impressive throughout the film (though keep in mind some scenes intentionally employ some soft-focus photography for artistic reasons, particularly towards the film’s finale). Compression artifacts are never a problems and the image shows no problems with any noise reduction or edge enhancement problems.
Audio options are provided in English and Italian tracks in 24-bit DTS-HD 1.0 Mono with optional English subtitle options provided for both audio options. Both tracks sound clean, clear and properly balanced throughout. The score has nice depth and range to it and the dialogue is always easy to follow and understand. There are no issues with any hiss, distortion or sibilance to gripe about, the audio is very clean and for old mono mixes, the tracks sound really good.
Extras are spread across the four discs in this set as follows:
Disc One (UHD):
Alongside an isolated score option, we get a commentary track by writer/director Aldo Lado and Federico Caddeo, in French with English subtitles. This goes over the film's release history, the shooting locations used for the feature, the different character arcs featured in the movie, the significance of certain unusual inclusions in the movie like the man with no legs in the opening scene, why certain scenes are laid out the way they are in the feature, what it was like working with Sorel, where his career was at when he made this movie, the marketing that went into getting the film released, the use of sound in the movie, getting Bach on board for the project, how the movie did at the box office compared to some of his other movies, some of the politics behind the film and the themes that it explores, the "osmosis" that plays a big part in the film's unusual finale and loads more.
The disc also includes a new commentary track by film critic Guido Henkel that explores the film's Prague setting and the Croatian shooting locations, what makes the film so unique, how Lado's problems with authority work their way into his films, the movie's theatrical and home video release history in Europe as well as North America, what was shot on location and what was shot on a soundstage in Rome, the name recognition that Bach and Sorel brought to the production, biographical details on most of the core cast and crew members, the subtext that permeates the film and how this makes this feature so remarkable, the different versions of the film that exist, what Prague was like during this period in history, thoughts on the English dub created for the movie and how it affects the movie, the film's score and soundtrack, what went into the film's restoration for this release and color timing and plenty of other details related to the movie and its history.
Finishing up the extras on the first disc are an English trailer, an Italian trailer, a grindhouse style trailer, and an unreleased English trailer (as "Catalepsis"), all four presented in 4K resolution/
Disc Two:
Disc two is a Blu-ray disc that is essentially a 1080p version of the first disc and it contains the same slate of extras as disc one.
Disc Three:
One disc three, we get The Nights Of Malastrana, an interview with writer/director Aldo Lado from 2014 running ninety-seven minutes. This piece does a fantastic job of covering Aldo Lado's entire career. It starts off by covering the early days, when he worked as a writer specializing in thrillers and Spaghetti Westerns. Of course, from there he decided to get into the director's chair and here we learn about many of the films that he has helmed over the years. There is, understandably, a substantial focus on Short Night Of Glass Dolls - it's not only unique but one of the more popular entries in his filmography - but other popular horror pictures like The Night Train Murders are also covered. He not only talks quite candidly about working in the film industry and about many of the people he encountered before retiring, but he also offers up some pretty blunt thoughts on the politics of his films and why some of those messages are in those movies in the first place. This is not only amazingly thorough but very well put together too, and it's a huge addition to this release.
This disc also contains a new 2018 interview with Aldo Lado that runs twenty-five minutes. He speaks here in detail about what inspired him to get into filmmaking, his love of movies as a kid, getting his start in the business and working his way up, what it was like making his first feature film and some of the anxiety he felt, making connections along the way, meeting producers and furthering his career, frustrations that he encountered along the way, befriending other filmmakers like Antonio Margheriti, details on what went into making Short Night Of Glass Dolls, casting the picture and working with his actors, going on to make Night Train Murders, working with Ennio Morricone and more.
The Most Beautiful Voice In The World is a twenty-one-minute interview with soprano Edda Del Orso. She speaks here not just about how she got into the music industry, the different films that she worked on over the years, how being able to read music and having a piano degree was an asset, vocalizing techniques, musical influences and her working relationship with the great Ennio Morricone. Great stuff.
We also get a twenty-three minute called Cuts Like A Knife in which Mario Morra, the film's editor, is interviewed. He talks about getting his start in the business, working with a Movieola, working with Sergio Montonari, working with different editors and directors over the years, some of the difficulties of his particular profession, and some of the challenges that arose in putting this particular feature together to get what Also Lado wanted up there on the screen in the finished version of the movie.
The Quest For Money is an interview with producer Enzo Doria that runs twenty minutes. He talks about starting out as an actor but moving into production by change on set once, how he financed his films, working with different production managers, the complications involved making more than one film at the same time, some of the different directors and actors that he worked with over the years, how he came to produce Short Night Of Glass Dolls and what his experiences on that project were like, working with Aldo Lado, some of the complications that arose during the production and other projects that he's worked on since.
Producer Dieter Geissler gets to talk for a half an hour in a featurette called To Italy And Back. He talks about his obsession with film in his younger days, how he started out in the film industry working in front of the camera as an actor and then how he went about shifting into the producer role. He then talks about various Italian co-productions he was involved with over the years, and his thoughts and memories of working on Short Night Of Glass Dolls.
Up next is a twenty-three-minute featurette titled The Kafka Connection by Howard Berger that goes over The Prague Spring and the politics that were shaping Eastern Europe and surrounding areas in the late sixties and how this affected Aldo Lado's politics and filmmaking. It covers Lado's connections to the region and the political change occurring in the region, how these societal events affected the making of the movie, influences that worked their way into Lado's work, how some of the themes and imagery employed in the film reflect this and how Lado offers up the concept of the "untrustworthy explainer" in the film. Lots of food for thought here!
The disc also includes an exclusive image gallery, and the long-lost export "Malastrana" credits sequence (tape sourced).
Disc Four:
The fourth disc, also a Blu-ray, includes a Grindhouse Version of the movie taken from a 35mm archival lab print. It is presented unrestored and, while nowhere near as nice looking as the feature attraction version, is still in reasonably good shape. There's scratches and scuffs and some damage here and there but it's more than watchable and demonstrates decent detail, depth and color reproduction. This version, framed properly at 2.35.1 and offered up in AVC encoded 1080p high definition, runs 1:36:55. Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono audio tracks are provided in English and Italian and optional English subtitles are provided.
Also included on disc four is the US VHS Pan & Scan Version under the alternate Paralyzed title. This version runs 1:36:35 and, being tape-sourced, is much softer looking than either of the other versions. It's an interesting artifact and a great addition to the release sure to appeal to completists but not likely the version you'll go back to the next time that you want to revisit the film. This version is in English only with optional English subtitles. The tape-sourced transfer is provided in 1080p high definition.
In addition to the four discs in this set, we also get a full color, sixty-four page book that includes a commemorative essay on Aldo Lado by Andy Marshall-Roberts titled ‘Who Saw The Glass Dolls On The Night Train’ that provides a career retrospective style look back at Lado’s work, along cast and crew information, some archival reviews from the film’s initial theatrical release, notes on the restoration and loads of archival photos and images. The four discs fit inside a flipper case, with each disc on its own spindle, and that case as well as the booklet fit inside a sturdy, side-loading slipcover. Sets purchased from the Celluloid Dreams website will also include a set of lobby card reproductions and a piece of an original film strip taken from a print of the movie in question.
Short Night Of Glass Dolls - The Final Word:
Short Night Of Glass Dolls holds up well, a twisted and involving mix of Giallo style trappings with a psychological thriller style execution shot with loads of style and performed by a solid cast. Add to that a killer score and this is one Eurocult fans should enjoy, particularly as presented here by Celluloid Dreams. The audio and video are top notch and the four-disc set is loaded with extra and alternate versions of the movie. Highly recommended!
