This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

just watch it!

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Outstanding Giallo where the Giallo tag barely applies, every shot looks like it was painted by an Italian maestro, and Ennio Morricone's soundtrack just adds to the eerie disorientation. The films starts with the dead body of Jean Sorel being found in a park in Prague, although as we can hear his thoughts, he's not quite as dead as he seems. After his initial horror at his predicament, and his futile attempts to communicate, Jean tries to figure out why he ended up in this situation in the first place - while laying out on a mortuary slab. Way back before he was a faux-corpse, it turns out Jean was a groovy US journalist based in Prague and just about to move home with his Czech girlfriend, Barbara Bach. Obviously this is back in the communist era, so he's having to do a bit of bribery in order to get her out of the country. He attends a party where most of the high-ranking politicians are present, and ends up leaving Barbara surrounded by cooing strangers while he fends of the advances of his co-worker and gets bogged down in a pointless conversation with his other co-worker, boozy Mario Adorf!The next day Barbara has gone missing, which leads Jean and Mario on a city spanning hunt to find out where she's gone. The police aren't much help, and Jean uncovers a history of young woman going missing in Prague that leads to a truth far more sinister than a mere black hatted-killer going around knifing folk for kicks. Of course, everyone who could actually help Jean ends up dead, but this film isn't all about body count. And that's just the flashback portion of the film, because in real time Jean's being rolled here and there, tested for responses, poked, probed, and all the while screaming in his head for help. The two plot strands come together nicely in an ending that'll have you thinking: "This is an Italian film."Just stunning to look at it (that means when you look at the film, you fall over your coffee table or just fall off the couch), jaw-dropping (which means your mouth just falls open for no reason), mesmerizing (you starve to death looking at the film). Watch out for the nightmarish visuals and the old person orgy! Recommended. The 'Creepy Eastern European City' plot would return in the Spider Labyrinth, probably the last genuinely creepy Italian film ever made/

In Prague, a man is found dead and sent to the morgue. The coroner finds his passport and identifies the American journalist Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel).He finds strange his body temperature and the absence of rigor mortis. However, Gregory is alive and totally paralyzed and recalls all the previous events. Gregory works in Prague with the journalists Jessica (Ingrid Thulin), with whom he had a love affair, and Jacques Versain (Mario Adorf). He will be transferred to London and meets his girlfriend Mira Svoboda (Barbara Bach) to invite her to travel with him. They go to a party and then he returns to his apartment with Mira. However Jacques calls him to investigate the death of a minister. However the information is fake and when he returns to the apartment, he finds that Mira has gone missing. The inefficient Inspector Kierkoff (Piero Vida) is in charge of the investigation and Gregory finds that several young women have disappeared in Prague. He carries out his own investigation culminating to find a mysterious cult. Meanwhile his friend and doctor finds weird the condition of his corpse and tries to revive Gregory. Will he succeed?"La corta notte delle bambole di vetro", a.k.a. "Short Night of Glass Dolls", is a totally different giallo. The story has no gore and slightly recalls the idea of "Sunset Boulevard", where a dead man tells the previous series of events until his death, and "Rosemary's Baby" since there are many people involved in a satanic cult. The conclusion is excellent with no redemption. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "A Breve Noite das Bonecas de Vidro" ("The Short Night of the Glass Dolls")

Brought into the city morgue, a still-alive American recalls visiting Prague with his girlfriend when he stumbles onto the mysterious disappearance of a young woman and sets out to find her which plunges him deeper into the underworld and forces him to stop the nefarious plans.This one has quite a lot to really like about it. What really works well here is the fact that this one manages to dwell quite heavily in such an engrossing mystery that it's main protagonist going crazy trying to solve it doesn't seem the slightest bit ludicrous or out- of-place. The early set-ups here, from the main part of him paralyzed trying to remember what happened and launching from there into the recollections of the events that transpire throughout here, from the party and her eventual disappearance to the gruesome discovery in the river and how that works into providing the remaining parts of the storyline. That leads into the more enjoyable giallo portions in the later half where he finds himself stumbling onto a fine mystery and getting into the usual demands of such a situation, generated by the fact that there's some rather ingenious scenes of him being psychologically tormented by the overt attempts on his life in the encounter in his hotel room or the murderer striking at the train-tracks which are clearly after him yet there's little about the scenes themselves that make sense in his unraveling of the mystery that draws him deeper into the underworld club that's at the center of his quest, and more importantly the scenes there not only wrap the film into quite a thrilling series of twists as well as the addition of some sleazy thrills to be had there with the disturbing orgy featured and the nice chase out of the club. Likewise, these are bolstered quite well with the interludes of him on the slab waiting to determine why he's showing the signs of death yet is not truly dead yet, and though these may somewhat disrupt the flow here there's more than enough to get engaged with the gradual tension of what's to come whether or not they realize this in time makes for a gripping main storyline on display. While these here give this a lot to really like, it's still a flawed effort overall. One of the biggest issues here is the fact that this one tends to interrupt it's main storyline chase for a series of overly bland and unimpressive shots here not only showing him being hounded by the police officer or at the music centers but also the numerous inserts of him on the phone calling others that it does seem to stutter at times. Due to the low body-count in here, that does compound measures somewhat slightly as well with the fact that there's not a whole lot of truly overt and obvious giallo leanings that come from this one, and on the whole these here are what hold it down.Rated R: Violence, Full Nudity, Language and drug use.

I had really high hopes for this new remaster from Blue Underground. In the last few months, I have become a big giallo fan. I've gained a real appreciation for the genre after viewing several."Short Night of the Glass Dolls" is without a doubt one of the most well-produced giallos I have seen to date. I think the budget was probably pretty large, compared to contemporaries. The cinematography is masterful and the soundtrack is amazing.Where this film fell short for me was the plot and continuity. I found myself getting bored throughout. There is no gore. The murders are minimal. The sex is tired. I just din't think it was all that interesting. I get the point of it: old people take advantage of the young in order to better themselves and their world. It will always be their world, they feed off the blood of the young...etc. The problem is, this isn't even alluded to until the very end of the film. It's also vague and the plot takes too many twists. I lost interest because so many things were never explained.Perhaps it would have been better viewed in Italian with subtitles. Maybe it was lost in the dubbing. (Which is good, compared to other Italian films.) Or maybe it was just the overly artsy feel, but somehow, it just failed to grab me. The last scene is pretty decent though. Does it make up for the slow pace? I guess it's up to the viewer to decide. If you can make it without falling asleep.6 out of 10, kids.