Short Night of Glass Dolls, Barbara Bach in much Peril

Way before being a Bond girl, and marrying Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach (European babe born in Queens, NY) graced some weird Italian horror films.  Her death in "Black Belly of the Tarantula" saddened us all.  In 1971's "Short Night of Glass Dolls" we will find her in just as much peril.  As Mira, Ms. Bach is young, beautiful, usually nude, vulnerable, and perfect prey to any sex fiend predator in Socialist Prague.  Can a handsome, but self absorbed American journalist save her from government tyranny and weird leftist satanic-sex cults?  Watch this film and find out.

Prague!  Socialist and under Soviet influence.  Not good for Mira, who desires freedom.  Ahhh, perhaps a ticket out of tyranny, her new beau....Gregory (Jean Sorel), an American journalist.  He intends to grease the skids and bribe enough bureaucrats in order to secure papers to free Mira.  Big problem.  Gregory is dead.  As the film opens he is pronounced dead and delivered to the morgue and prepped for an autopsy.  This comes as a great surprise to Gregory, who is fully aware of his surroundings but unable to move or speak.  Just before his weird predicament, he was searching for Mira, who was abducted, nude, from her apartment.

 Gregory snooped all over Czechoslovakia and traced Mira's disappearance to Club 99.  Club 99? A really weird place filled with senior citizens who like to listen to chamber music and have orgies? As Gregory neared the truth, he uncovered some really weird facts.  As bodies pile up, Gregory learns that Prague has an epidemic of beautiful young women being abducted in their nudity.  But wait...was Mira abducted or is she a willing participant in something very lurid?  Will Mira gain her freedom or be abducted by the Soviets and turned into the spy that James Bond loves? Will Gregory be able to reanimate before his autopsy begins?

Yep...this is a weird one.  While watching this film, I thought it was really out there...until the final 15 minutes, when I was introduced to the meaning of the term "out there."  Perhaps a statement of the oppressive condition that befell many Czechs after WW2, or perhaps a weird psycho-sexual horror flick done Italian style, either way "Short Night of Glass Dolls" is for European horror lovers who don't mind weirdness.  Filmed in Rome and Slovenia (...and some in Yugoslavia), enjoy this surreal tale, which is available on YouTube.