Short Night of the Glass Dolls (4K UHD Review)

Reviewed by: Tim Salmons
Review Date: Aug 04, 2025
Format: 4K Ultra HD

Director

Aldo Lado

Release Date(s)

1971 (April 29, 2025)

Studio(s)

Overseas Films Company (Celluloid Dreams)

Film/Program Grade: A-
Video Grade: A+
Audio Grade: A
Extras Grade: A

celluloid-dreams.net/

Review

Aldo Lado, who had been an assistant director for Bernado Bertolucci before writing Maurizio Lucidi’s 1971 giallo La vittima designata (The Designated Victim), made his directorial debut with one of the most hard-hitting giallos of the era, La corta notte delle bambole di vetro, known outside of Italy as Short Night of the Glass Dolls. It’s one of the more unusual gialli in that it doesn’t adhere to the usual narratives or iconography of an atypical giallo. There are no black-gloved killers, nor is there a heavy emphasis on blood-letting. Instead, it relies on tension and atmosphere, guiding us down a dark and twisting path of discovery, showing us a world underneath ours that may be more frightening than what’s on the surface, while also exploring thematic material relevant to classism and geopolitical strife.

American journalist Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel) is found dead in a park in Prague, but unknown to the medical examiners and morticians is that despite his apparent lack of heartbeat, Moore is very much alive, trapped inside his own mind. As they further examine him, he struggles to remember the events that led him to where is. Days before, his girlfriend Mira (Barbara Bach) arrived to be with him before he was to leave Prague altogether. They, along with Moore’s fellow journalist friends Jacques (Mario Adorf) and Jessica (Ingrid Thulin), the latter a former lover, attend an upper class party, whereupon Mira garners much attention for her beauty. Later in the evening, Moore comes home to find Mira missing, leaving behind all of her personal belongings, including her clothes. Despite the local police, specifically Kommissar Kierkoff (Piero Vida), insisting that Moore not get involved in the investigation to find her, he and his journalist friends hit the streets, looking for clues into her whereabouts, leading them down a dark and dangerous path. Other actors include José Quaglio, Fabijan Šovagović, Relja Bašić, and Daniele Dublino.

Short Night of the Glass Dolls is a very difficult film to discuss without getting into heavy spoilers, but it would be fair to say that allusions to Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick can both be gleaned from the film’s plot, in comparison to King’s short story Autopsy Room Four and Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Neither of those works completely copy the film’s narrative, but you can find clear similarities once you’ve seen the film through to the end. The idea is also akin to the 1955 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents entitled Breakdown, which may have served somewhat as an inspiration for the story. On the other hand, Glass Dolls has more of a visceral impact than those other works. The thought of being alive inside a seemingly dead body is an ancient fear that offers the kind of mounting tension that’s almost impossible to replicate since it’s very much a universal anxiety among human beings. Mix that with an intriguing plot analogous to George Sluizer’s Spoorloos (The Vanishing) and you have a true nail-biter on your hands.

Performances are strong across the board, and the cinematography by Giuseppe Ruzzolini (Duck, You Sucker! aka A Fistful of Dynamite) offers a bounty of carefully-considered gradations of light and shadow. It’s not necessarily one of the most-celebrated gialli in comparison to some of the more prominent titles by the likes of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Sergio Martino, but Short Night of the Glass Dolls is perhaps one of the more unnerving films of the lot, complete with one of the most riveting and ultimately haunting endings in all of cinema.

Short Night of the Glass Dolls was shot by cinematographer Giuseppe Ruzzolini on 35 mm 2-perf Techniscope film using Arriflex cameras and spherical lenses, finished photochemically, and presented in the aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Celluloid Dreams debuts the film on Ultra HD from a new 4K restoration of the original camera negative, which has been graded for High Dynamic Range in HDR10, encoded and authored by Ryan Masciola at Diversified Video Solutions, QC’d by Esteban Medaglia at QC Boutique, and presented on a triple-layered BD-100 disc. It’s worth noting that this is being released almost concurrently with 88 Films’ UHD release in the UK, which features its own restoration. However, based solely upon screen captures, it’s clear that Celluloid Dreams has the visual upper hand over that release in nearly every way. Theirs is a gorgeously-mounted ultra high definition presentation with solid levels of grain and impeccable encoding, with bitrates that often sit in the 80 to 100Mbps range. Short Night of the Glass Dolls is a dark film, and Celluloid Dreams has leaned into that appropriately, allowing the shadows to swallow up the world of the characters, but never at the expense of visual detail. Blacks are incredibly deep, but nothing is crushed or flat. The HDR grade allows for perfect contrast while boosting the film’s natural palette, making way for natural flesh tones and deep levels of detail in the film’s beautiful color palette. If you look close enough, you can spot extremely minor damage in a couple of spots that couldn’t be fully repaired, but it’s highly negligible as the overall majority of the presentation is organic, stable, and beautifully film-like. It’s doubtful that it could look any better.

Audio is included in Italian and English mono DTS-HD Master Audio, with optional subtitles in English SDH for the Italian audio and English for the English audio. The Italian track, which is much more preferred in terms of performance, has a very mild hiss but offers excellent fidelity for the various elements. It’s a warmer track than its English language counterpart, which is a cleaner-sounding track in some ways, but with less aural detail. Both tracks support Ennio Morricone’s haunting and effective score admirably. It’s worth mentioning that none of the audio options can be toggled while watching the film, including the two audio commentaries.

The 4-Disc 4K Ultra HD release of Short Night of the Glass Dolls sits in a black Amaray case along three 1080p Blu-rays, dual-sided artwork featuring the film’s original Italian theatrical poster on each side with its English or Italian title, a collectible 10-frame 35mm filmstrip taken from the film’s trailer, and a 64-page insert booklet containing cast and crew information, the essay Who Saw the Glass Dolls on the Night Train?: A Retrospective on the Works of Aldo Lado by Andy Marshall-Roberts, initial reactions to the film in Italian film magazines, additional notes on the film entitled Sex, Sadism and Blood and The Insatiable Glass Dolls, restoration information, production credits, and a thank you page. All of this material is housed in a rigid slipcase with new artwork by Lieu Pham of Covertopia. Purchasing this release directly through the Celluloid Dreams website will also net you a set of 12”x8.25” color reproductions of the film’s original Italian fotobustas. The following extras and versions of the film are included on each disc:

DISC ONE: FILM (UHD)

Audio Commentary with Aldo Lado and Federico Caddeo
Audio Commentary with Guido Henkel
Isolated Score Audio Track in 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio
Italian Trailer (UHD – 3:08)
English Trailer (UHD – 3:07)
“Grindhouse” Trailer (UHD – 3:07)
Catalepsis Trailer (UHD – 3:09)

DISC TWO: FILM (BD)

Audio Commentary with Aldo Lado and Federico Caddeo
Audio Commentary with Guido Henkel
Isolated Score Audio Track in 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio
Italian Trailer (HD – 3:07)
English Trailer (HD – 3:07)
“Grindhouse” Trailer (HD – 3:06)
Catalepsis Trailer (HD – 3:09)

DISC THREE: EXTRAS (BD)

The Nights of Malastrana (HD and Upscaled SD – 101:08)
All About Lado: A Career Retrospective (HD – 32:32)
The Quest for Money (HD and Upscaled SD – 20:10)
Einmal Italien und zurück (Once to Italy and Back) (HD – 30:17)
The Most Beautiful Voice in the World (HD – 21:44)
Cuts Like a Knife (HD – 23:48)
The Man on the Bridge: Philosophy, Perception and Imprisonment in Aldo Lado’s Short Night of the Glass Dolls (HD – 23:03)
Malastrana Export Credits (Upscaled SD – 4:19)
Image Gallery (HD – 66 in all)

DISC FOUR: EXTRAS (BD)

“Grindhouse” Version (HD – 97:08)
Paralyzed US Version (Upscaled SD – 96:35)

This is a massively dense set of bonus materials, beginning with a 2006 audio commentary with writer/director Aldo Lado and filmmaker Federico Caddeo, which is spoken in French with English subtitles. It’s more of a question and answer session with Caddeo acting as moderator, but it’s invaluable for Lado’s direct answers on various aspects of the film. The new audio commentary with film preservationist, writer, and Celluloid Dreams producer Guido Henkel provides much of the usual background on members of the cast and crew, but also delves into the film’s shooting locations, its releases throughout the world including its US debut on VHS, the film’s style and cinematography, various aspects of the story, the Techniscope and Technicolor processes, Alan Lado’s attention to detail, philosophical and geopolitical aspects of the film, the film’s breaking with gialli conventions, the importance of listening to the Italian track instead of the English track (I wholeheartedly agree), aspects of the film’s title and its ending, and the variety of film materials accessed by Celluloid Dreams for their restoration, among other subjects. There are a few gaps of silence here and there, but it’s an otherwise excellent examination of the film.

Also included is an isolated score audio track presented in 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio, as well as a series of trailers restored in 4K, including the main Italian and English language trailers for the film; a “grindhouse” version of the Italian trailer, which is more of a raw scan without any of the restoration efforts; and an English language trailer for the film under the title Catalepsis.

The Nights of Malastrana features a 2015 interview with Aldo Lado that delves deep into his long career as a screenwriter and a director before diving into facets of Short Night of the Glass Dolls, with occasional comments by actor Jean Sorel. All About Lado features a 2018 interview with the director that covers his career more fully. The Quest for Money speaks to producer Enzo Doria about his acting career before moving into production on many films, also with occasional comments by Sorel, as well as Lado. Einmal Italien und zurück interviews co-producer Dieter Geissler who discusses working as an actor and later becoming a producer in Italy. In The Most Beautiful Voice in the World, soprano Edda Dell’orso recalls working with Ennio Morricone and her work for the film’s musical score. Cuts Like a Knife showcases editor Mario Morra who, as per usual, gives a very interesting overview of his career before discussing Glass Dolls. The Man on the Bridge offers a visual essay by “The Flying Maciste Brothers” (Kevin Marr and Howard S. Berger) that details the film’s content and its philosophical and geopolitical subtexts. Also included is an alternate credits sequence for the film under the title Malastrana, which is sourced from a VHS tape. The Image Gallery consists of 66 stills of posters, lobby cards, home video artwork, newspaper clippings, film programs, and production photographs.

Last are a pair of alternate presentations of the film. The “Grindhouse” version of the film is taken from a scan of an original 35mm lab print, which Celluloid Dreams discovered while searching for materials for their restoration. As they note in the opening text before the start of the film: “It is unmodified and unrestored, leaving all defects in place to recreate the way a presentation could have looked like in a movie theater back in the day.” It features audio in Italian and English 2.0 mono Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles. The other version of the film, which was released in the US as Paralyzed, has been taken from a pan and scan VHS copy, which is also presented without any restorative efforts, outside of upscaling and perhaps stabilizing the picture. It’s presented in English 2.0 mono Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles and features alternate opening and closing credit sequences, as well as minor changes throughout, including the deletion of Ingrid Thulin’s character’s reaction at the end of the film.

Inevitably, the film has had a number of home video releases all over the world and many of the extras included with those releases have fallen by the wayside as a consequence. The Region Free Anchor Bay Entertainment and Blue Underground DVD releases from 2002 and 2016 respectively feature Strange Days of the Short Night, an interview with Aldo Lado. The Region 2 Neo Publishing DVD release from 2007 includes the documentary Portrait of Aldo Lado and a 2007 interview with Jean Sorel. The Region 2 Koch Media release from 2006 features a German language audio commentary with singer Jürgen Drews and an interview with actor Mario Adorf. The Region 2 Camera Obscura DVD release from 2015 includes a German language audio commentary with film historians Christian Kessler and Marcus Stiglegger. The Region A Twilight Time Blu-ray release includes an audio commentary with film historians David Del Valle and Matteo Molinari and eight pages of liner notes by Julie Kirgo. And finally, the aforementioned 88 Films 4K Ultra HD release in the UK features an audio commentary with film historians Troy Howarth, Nathaniel Thompson, and Eugenio Ercolani; When Butterflies Turned to Glass, an interview with Aldo Lado; Glass Doll Theories, a video essay by film historian Pier Maria Bocchi; Lado’s Trilogy of Terror, another video essay by film historian Mike Foster; and Paralyzed by Fear, an interview with film historian Stephen Thrower.

Obviously the material from the 88 Films release, as well as the interview with Mario Adorf, are sorely missed here, but the bonus materials that have been included are top of the line. Celluloid Dreams has put together what is, in this reviewer’s opinion, a superior 4K Ultra HD package for Short Night of the Glass Dolls that does the film and its legacy justice. Highly recommended.

- Tim Salmons

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