Short Night of Glass Dolls
Short Night of Glass Dolls is a 1971 film from West Germany and Italy, directed by Aldo Lado, running 92 minutes. reelscum files it under giallo.
- Year
- 1971 · 1970s films
- Country
- West Germany · Italy
- Runtime
- 92 min
- Director
- Aldo Lado
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (39/100)
- Also known as
- Short Night of Glass Dolls · The Short Night of the Butterflies · Paralyzed
Defined in the glossary: Giallo
Narrated by a paralysed man presumed dead. Unusual and very good.
A giallo narrated by a man everyone believes is dead. A journalist's corpse lies on a slab in Prague, fully conscious inside a paralysed body, piecing together in flashback how he got there and what happened to his vanished lover.
Aldo Lado builds real dread out of that premise, and the conspiracy the journalist uncovers is stranger and more political than the usual jealous-relative reveal. Morricone provides an unusually mournful score.
Unusual, chilly and unsettling. One of the great overlooked gialli.
Trailer
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The cycle in depth
- The giallo, 1963 to 1976
A line of yellow paperbacks, a killer in black gloves, and Mario Bava building the American slasher a decade before Hollywood cashed the cheque.
Filed alongside
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