Aldo Lado's wonderfully weird giallo, Short Night of Glass Dolls.

Opening with a body being found, only this person isn't entirely dead, just paralyzed. This man is our main protagonist Gregory Moore, a reporter (Jean Sorel - Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971)). Following his journey in the ambulance all the way to the local morgue, where he's put into 'cold storage'. So to pass the time he starts to think about how his beautiful girlfriend Mira mysteriously disappeared. Mira played by Barbara Bach of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) fame.

Interestingly, Short Night's narrative is split into two parts, the present tense; Greg in the morgue and the past tense; his memory, in which the majority of the story is told. Shortly after, in the past tense, we're introduced to Jessica (Ingrid Thulin), who is also a reporter and begins working with Gregory to unravel the mystery. Skipping back to the present we meet another of Gregory's friends Ivan, amorgue worker who notices that rigormortis hasn't set in on Greg's body and goes about attempting to revive him.



In my opinion this is an extraordinary giallo; for what it lacks in the savage and bloody death department, it makes up for with great character development that really strengthens film's tense and intelligent plot. Lado's pacing works brilliantly in conjunction with the drip-fed plot development. The way I interpreted it was that, as Gregory remembers the events of the movie, we learn them alongside him, binding the audience directly to Greg and his experiences. Ennio Morricone's soundtrack is beautifully suspenseful and suits film's pacing.

DVD: Anchorbay - The Giallo Collection
Run Time: 97 Mins
Extras: Strange Days of The Short Night - An all-new 11-minute interview with Director Aldo Lado, Theatrical Trailer and Aldo Lado Filmography.