Short Night of Glass Dolls, Aldo Lado’s directorial debut, is
actually quite the surprise, in that it manages to meet, defy, and exceed expectations
right up from its mellow start to its killer climax. It interweaves elements
from occult horror and the detective thriller into a nonlinear narrative that
has a little bit of a Citizen Kane (1941)
format and a plot that’s driven by the interesting mystery of what could’ve
befallen its unfortunate protagonist. The explanation is pretty much what you’d
expect, but the sheer weirdness and the way it plays out, not to mention the
alternate Prague setting, causes Short
Night to be refreshingly different from the more common giallo of the early
‘70s and yet still look and feel very much like one.
The success of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) was still freshly
permeating its influence around this time, and it’s no surprise that numerous
films continued to capitalize on its black magic, occult, and conspiracy themes, and Short Night is
no exception, with murders, kidnappings, and sanity breakdowns feeling
orchestrated by some sort of secret order, also bringing to mind The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974).
