Folly of the "Dolls"

Well, Halloween is nearly upon us and so many of the satellite movie channels are trucking out suspensers, familiar and rare, in order to give us an extra shock in October. Often this means we see more of Mr. Vincent Price, as is the case with today's featured movie, though this is not a horror movie, more of a thriller for lack of a better term. House of a 1,000 Dolls is a Spanish-German co-production that hit screens in 1967. Now nearly forgotten (something many of Price's core fans don't really mind!), it's not a terrific movie, but it does have its minor pleasures. We try never to miss movies from this period just because of the clothing and hairstyles alone and this one doesn't disappoint. Oh, and stayed tuned till the very end for a Halloween treat -- or trick?!

Our opus begins with a processional involving an ornate. black hearse followed by a black limousine. The two vehicles turn into a private, gated residence. That it's bright daylight as they enter the gate and suddenly pitch dark once on the other side is an indication that Dolls may not be the most logical or detail-oriented movie ever made...!

Black-clad pallbearers bring the gilded coffin into the house and through the foyer, taking a left turn into a well-appointed drawing room. Here, amid black draperies, candles and carefully-arranged foliage we find Vincent Price and his wife Martha Hyer, dressed in clothes of mourning.

Price orders the lid of the coffin raised and he, Hyer and their hench- woman Yelena Samarina peer inside. The use of framing and color in this moment give a promise of style and flourish that, sadly, do not extend throughout the entire movie.

Inside the coffin is a young, blonde lady who, it turns out, is not actually dead, but in a coma-like trance. With a snap of his fingers, Price brings her around (screaming!)

The thing is, if Price and all his cronies knew that this was merely an unconscious woman, then why all the funereal trimmings? Why all the unnecessary show? It's because the filmmakers wanted to make US think that there was a real dead body inside, but it makes no sense whatsoever plot-wise.

The film is set in Tangier, Morocco and features some nice shots of that locale, though the cities of Cadiz and Madrid, Spain were where the bulk of the piece was shot. Nevertheless, a nice on-location atmosphere is established several times rather than a film consisting of cardboard, artificial sets.

Now we meet George Nader and his wife (a dozen or so years his junior) Ann Smyrner. They are lunching with a young man (Sancho Gracia) who tells them about the disappearance of his girlfriend. She was kidnapped in Vienna but brought to Tangier, according to a tip he was given.

Gracia has a friend in town who offers to help him locate the girl. They begin to hit the town in their tuxedos, looking at can can dancers as part of the search. When there is no luck, Gracia's friend takes him backstage to meet a girl he is familiar with.

This dancer recom- mends that they head to the House of 1,000 Dolls, a high-class, high-priced brothel into which no one can be admitted without the necessary money and the peculiar calling card, a little doll, which she hands over to them.

Meanwhile, we see Price and Hyer again, bemoaning the fact that they are beholden to someone known as the King of Hearts, owner and operator of a network of white slavers, who presides over the House of Dolls (where Hyer was once a "worker!") and who keeps them working for him in procuring new flesh for the factory. The two of them do a magic act which provides them with the means to snatch pretty young ladies.

Outside, they are accosted by a man with a gun who claims to be the boyfriend of one of their victims and who has tracked them back to Tangier. They are close to being shot when Price's faithful servant comes up from behind and does away with the would-be killer.

Now over at the House of Dolls, Gracia is being let into the estab- lishment, thanks to his friend with the dough and the doll.

Samarina greets them in a lovely gilded room and indicates for them to be seated in front of a huge mirror. Next, she dims the lights and they sit watching through the two-way mirror as doll after doll ludicrously takes her turn in front of the mirror to primp and preen over herself.

Maybe it's me, but I don't think white slaves held in a brothel would be quite this concerned about looking their absolute best at all times and grooming themselves endlessly in the mirror!

Finally, Gracia spots his lady love, Maria Rohm. Gracia can barely contain himself at the sight of her, but is convinced by his buddy to hang tight until he can be alone with her. He requests a private session with Rohm.

Rohm must hold it together, too, while the attendant is on-hand in her room, but once he is gone, she can express her surprise and delight at finally being located. (And we are surprised and delighted by the gargantuan hairpiece she is wearing!) Trouble is, the couple is being secretly recorded by the villainous Samarina...

The following morning, Gracia is about to leave - ostensibly planning to come back for her with the authorities - when he is stopped by the burly doorman of the club. He tips the man, thinking that will be all, and also nabs one of the dolls on his way out the door.

Once outside, he is stopped and then chased by four henchmen. He takes off running into an automobile junkyard, but they are on his tail.

Quite possibly the least-threatening looking quartet of henchmen ever captured on celluloid outside of a deliberately comic movie...

This lobby card shows more of Gracia than we actually get to see in the film, including that little window of bare chest.

Unfortunately, Gracia hides in a dilapidated car and one of the men hurls a fiery torch into the trunk of it, blowing it all to hell and back. Miraculously enough, this does not kill Gracia, but he's dazed and injured enough that it doesn't take much more to finish him off.

Samarina knows that Rohm had plans to escape with her now-dead lover and she removes her (and another doll, Diane Bond, who attempted to help Rohm avoid being slapped around) from the others.

The local police have come to visit Nader, having found out that he was a friend of Gracia's, and want him to identify the body. Nader had intended to join his wife that evening on the town, but tells her to go without him.

Nader (somehow!) recognizes Gracia at the morgue and soon admits to the local police that he is a doctor of pathology and that he doesn't trust the police to figure out what happened with his friend.

At the brothel, we find Rohm and Bond, bound and tossed into a room together. Bond, who already demonstrated her pluckiness when she took on two henchmen on Rohm's behalf, is using the edges of a pulley from something (a dumbwaiter perhaps?) to cut through the rope on her wrists. Once free, she heads to another room with Rohm to attempt escape.

Here, she takes some rope and rappels off the side of the building as Rohm tries to hold the other end inside the window. You can bet your ass there were some spectators on set that day as the tall, athletic lady moved down the face of the building in a skimpy chiffon nightie and silver sandals!

Once on the ground, Bond is hounded by two more henchmen, who chase her into a nearby garden. You really have to hand it to this chick who not only flips them on their keisters with some martial arts moves, but also takes a shovel and a pick axe to them before finally being caught and having her nightie torn from her body. (Bond did all her own stunts.)

Price has received word from an informant that Nader is looking for Gracia's killer. They have also discovered that Nader's wife Smyrner has a ticket to see their magic act that evening. Price and his wife Hyer do a mentalist routine with Price throwing in occasional bits of sleight of hand.

For their finale, they look for a "volunteer" and won't take no for an answer from Smyrner. Besides, she's already got the perfect hairdo for someone about to be kidnapped and sent to work in a luxurious brothel!

Nader arrives just in time to see Price abrakazam his wife into oblivion and is beside himself. He confronts Hyer and Price about the whereabouts of Smyrner. Realizing that they have been foiled in their plan to spirit her away, Price tells Nader that there was a slight accident backstage, but that she'll be around shortly.

Just then, Smyrner is brought to the room by their man- servant, looking like she was a passenger on the S.S. Poseidon the night it flipped upside-down!

Still, Price manages to soothe Nader with a snifter of expensive brandy and even agrees to help look for the killer of his friend. While Hyer offers to take Smyrner back to her hotel, Price decides to take Nader out to every likely nightclub in Tangier where they might locate information about Garcia's killer since that's what Garcia had been doing when he disappeared.

At the first place, a belly dancer is periodically removing bits of her costume as Nader questions a photographer who'd been pestering them during lunch the previous day. Hilariously, as the dancer gets down to only a bedazzled bikini (for many men, the best part), Nader says, "not much left for us to see here is there...?" to the always mincing Price and off they go!

Now they come to an estab- lishment featuring female mud wrestlers! What? You thought that was an '80s thing? Price bets money on one of the gals (who wrestle in what seems like super slo-mo and with palable awkwardness), then takes off to the back of the building without even watching. Nader is equally disinterested in the proceedings.

This lobby card attempts to put forth some of the movie's ASSets...

After splitting with Price, Nader bumps into a local police detective who is working the case as well. Together they head to the apartment of a photographer who has been woven into the mix throughout. He claims to know nothing apart from having snapped the dead man's photo the day before his death.

When Nader decides to revisit the photo- grapher himself, he is confronted by several black-clad thugs who scuffle with him in the stairwell until he gets away. Then he's chased all over hell's half acre. This is a fairly creative sequence with good camerawork and some neat locations such as an abandoned railway yard.

Meanwhile, Hyer (always glamorously appointed) has come back to Nader's hotel and convinces his wife Smyrner to come downstairs. Then she lures her to the parking lot where she is knocked out and captured!

If Price and Hyer are trying to avoid being found out, they have a peculiar way of showing it since the henchmen leave a note on unconscious Nader's back telling him to come to Rebecca's (Hyer's) place that night if he ever wants to see his wife again!

Back at the House, Smyrner is being threatened by an all-too-pleased Samarina, whose lesbianism is not exactly disguised. She tells her new captive that if she won't tell her the information she needs about her husband and what he knows, she will take it out on the other girls.

Smyrner and Rohm watch in horror and Bond is strung up and shackled and the doorman/ torturer whips out a huge sabre. He brings the blade down swiftly but, surprise, it was just to remove her already shredded blue nightie! He does proceed to whip her - to Samarina's delight - but they still get nowhere with the ladies.

Price and Hyer take a stroll through a beautiful park, discussing their plans to exit the country as soon as that evening's perfor- mance is over. They plan to "off" both Smyrner and Nader, then exit the syndicate which is run by the "King of Hearts." The whole time they are talking, a little girl with a ball keeps interacting with them...! The daughter of one of the crew making her debut?!

Though he was warned not to approach the police, Nader secretly meets his detective contact (in a car wash!) to implore him to come to the theatre and arrest the couple. The detective wants to use Nader and his wife as bait to catch the bigger kingpin of the operation and advises him to go along with the plan and he'll be close behind.

While one of the slave girls sees to Bond's wounds, Smyrner has the unhappy task of informing Rohm that her boyfriend has been killed.

Nader meets with Hyer and they square off over the whole situation. He offers to help Hyer and Price escape the country if she'll take him to his wife right away. Faced with the police closing in anyway, she relents and agrees to take him to Smyrner.

Things come unraveled, though, and there is a melee at the House of 1,000 Dolls. Nader and the police are faced with a final showdown with Price before the whole thing is finally over and done with.

House of 1,000 Dolls is a real hodge-podge, with some creative flourishes and eye-popping visuals blended with static situations and banal dialogue. For every compelling action sequence there is a tired dialogue sequence, giving the movie a stop-start quality. But it is worth seeing once and it does try to supply a twist ending, idiotic as it is.

As I noted earlier, fans of Price often dislike this movie because he isn't in it as much as they might like and it lacks some of the showier qualities he often brought to his thrillers. But he's photographed nicely and he's almost always worth watching just because of his uniqueness as an actor. Having memorably appeared in scads of movies from the late-1930s to the early-1990s, Mr. Price was never once nominated for an Oscar (or even an Emmy), nor granted an Honorary one. The inimitable one passed away in 1993 of lung cancer and emphysema at age eighty-two.

Hyer began acting in films in the mid-1940s and built up a solid career for herself, often as elegant girlfriends or society figures. By 1959, she'd gotten an Oscar nomination for Some Came Running, but lost to Wendy Hiller in Separate Tables. Hitting her stride in the early-1960s, she had begun to lose steam as the decade went on. A 1966 marriage to producer Hal Wallis ensured that she would only have to act occasionally and, in fact, she quit entirely in 1974. She died in 2014 of natural causes at age eighty-nine.

She and Price got along splendidly during filming and took advantage of their downtime to visit various art museums and galleries, which interested them both very much. Price claimed that while they were away, the producers filmed "dirty" scenes that hadn't initially been included in the script, but whatever those might have been, they are tame by today's standards!

Nader has been profiled here at Poseidon's Underworld. Once one of Universal's more popular hunks, he was also seeing some career waning by now and would, like Hyer, retire completely by 1974. Only forty-six at the time of filming, he looks older than that and rather waxen, though most men of that era did as well. Nader lived to be eighty years old when heart failure took him in 2002.

Smyrner was an attractive Danish actress who, in this film, had some killer 1960s makeup. Working in Denmark as well as in Germany from 1957 on, not too many of her movies saw the light of day in the U.S. (She did costar with Les Barker in Code 7, Victim 5 in 1964.) She left acting in - you guessed it - 1974 due to illness, but lived until 2016 when she passed away at eighty-one years of age.

Wolfgang Kieling, who played Nader's police detective ally, was a noted voice performer in Germany, providing the speaking voices for Glenn Ford, Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman when their movies were dubbed into German. Ironically, his best known role to American audiences was as the villainous Gromek, who Newman has a very tough time killing in Torn Curtain (1966!) Kieling suffered complications from stomach surgery and died in 1985 at age sixty-one.

Spanish leading man Gracia worked on many international productions, some of which include the Charlton Heston movies Antony and Cleopatra and The Call of the Wild (both 1972.) He also worked with Robert Taylor in 1966's Savage Pampas. His five-decade-long career came to an end when lung cancer claimed him in 2012 at age seventy-five.

Austrian child actress turned adult leading lady Rohm slept with the producer to get this part. Well, okay, maybe not to get this part. LOL She was producer Harry Alan Towers' wife since 1964. She was his favorite leading lady and worked in many of his projects. Some of her other films include Dorian Gray (1970) with Helmut Berger, The Call of the Wild (1972) and Ten Little Indians (1974), one of several versions of that story her husband produced. She quit acting in 1976, later turning to production, until her death in 2018 of leukemia at age seventy-two.

Samarina was a Russian actress who settled in Spain and married the head of a Madrid movie studio. Like many of the performers in this film, few of her movies were shown to any great extent in the U.S., though she enjoyed a busy, lengthy career. Samarina passed away in 2011 at age eighty-three.

And now for your Halloween treat, a couple of pictures of my costume this year! My best friend and I were invited to a fairy tale themed party and opted to go as Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. (I'm the Wolf! Ha ha!)  It's up to you whether you find this a treat or a trick...!  Till next time.