Movie review by Greg GoodsellDirected By Susan Marks
Frances Glessner Lee (1878 – 1962), was a dear little old lady born of the Victorian era. A millionaire heiress, her parents sent her brother off to Ivy league schools while she was expected to stay home and marry the right man. Marrying at the ago of 20, Lee mothered three children but ultimately divorced her husband. It was during this time she begun to indulge her passion for crime and punishment -- and murder.
Introduced to George MaGrath, he introduced Lee to the reality that police detectives weren’t properly trained to process crime scenes for medical evidence. In the Gay Nineties, forensic crime investigations were still in their infancy. recalling her childhood passion for dolls, dollhouse and miniaturizations, Lee began in earnest a series of ghastly tableaux that were to be later called the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Incredibly elaborate and detailed dollhouse scenes, using store-bought dollies -- who were then customized to show expressions of alarm and death -- these nutshells were used as a training tool that allowed budding detectives to arrive at crime scenes to arrive at their own conclusions about the dolls' demises.