Of Dolls and Murder

Comments (0) By Sheila Regan Wednesday, Sep 28 2011

Location Info

Map

Heights Theater

3951 Central Ave. NE
Columbia Heights, MN 55421

Category: Movie Theaters

Region: Columbia Heights

0 user reviews	Write A Review
Save to foursquare

More About

Of Dolls and Murder, a documentary created by filmmakers Susan Marks and John Kurtis Dehn, featuring narration by the legendary John Waters, gets its regional premiere this Wednesday at the Heights Theater. The film takes as its subject the dioramas/dollhouses first created by wealthy heiress Frances Glessner Lee in the 1930s and '40s to help detectives be better at their craft. Though dollhouses are considered pretty low-tech by today's standards, they are still used to help train investigators. These dioramas give a visual image of what a one might see at a crime scene, complete with a doll corpse hanging, shot to death, or decomposing. They help detectives develop their skills in order to figure out what could have happened. "It's all about observation," Marks says. "When you see things in miniature, it forces you to be very observant." According to Marks, the creator of the dollhouses, Glessner Lee, is a bit of a mystery. Born in the Victorian era, she was heiress to the International Harvester Fortune, and had to fight against her own family and upbringing to follow her passion in what was then called "legal medicine" (and eventually became modern-day forensics). Call 651.644.1912 for tickets.
Wed., Sept. 28, 7:30 p.m., 2011