A Truly Orphean Can-Can: Living Dead Dolls Series 33 Ella Von Terra by Mezco Toyz

Like Angus Litilrott, this doll isn't really getting a solo post because I wanted to set her aside as a special topic, but more for the fact that the next standard roundup she could qualify for is probably a ways off. My October plans are entirely seasonal, stacked with a Living Dead Dolls Halloween extravaganza series, so there won't be an assorted roundup, but Ella grabbed me enough to get her in September while working on Roundup 7 and I needed to talk about her shortly after it.

See my previous Series 33 reviews here, here, and here.

Ella Von Terra is one of two chorus dancers in the Moulin Morgue cabaret, and she's the more interesting one to me. For one, she provides a pop of unique color to the series with her very purple theme. The other dolls are black and white and red/orange, so Ella stands out. She also uses a new head sculpt, which, given how short the run of classic LDD was after Series 33, is also entirely unique to her. There wasn't enough time for someone else to use it. 

Ella's concept is that she got too close to the seedy underbelly of  her theater and was murdered, hanged with her lips stitched while the official story became that she died by suicide. I don't know how dark secrets could possibly exist in a cabaret of the brutal undead, or what Ella thought she was getting into joining the troupe alive, so perhaps that all happened in a different company during her living days and she qualified for and joined with the Moulin Morgue after rising from the dead. 

Ella is also loosely based on real current-day burlesque artist Dita Von Teese, with her dark hair, line of entertainment, and name all corresponding. This all makes her seem somewhat similar to three different Series 5 characters--Jezebel for the burlesque theme and reference to real burlesque performers, Siren for being murdered with her lips stitched, and Dahlia (in the same post linked for Jezebel) for being dark-haired and implicitly killed by the industry, also with an element of stitching and having a very vengeful look as an undead.

What put me off about Ella for the longest time was the execution of her gory surprise--I wasn't sold on the way her new stitched mouth was sculpted or painted and thought the blood bursting out all around was ugly and distracting, but a new sculpt is a new sculpt and I thought I could get some good work with her.

Once she arrived in person, I felt like it all worked out. She looked awesome.

My Ella was sealed. Only Maitre Des Morts was fully unsealed of the S33s I've gotten, though Carotte Morts had been unpacked and then resealed secondhand.

Ella's name is probably a stage name like Dita's, because "Von Terra" doesn't scan as linguistically authentic. "Terra" is Latin for "earth" while the "Von" is a Germanic feature. Dita chose the name "Von Treese" from a phone book, which then got misspelled "Von Teese" in her first print feature, and she rolled with it. I don't think "Von Terra" reflects a real Germanic surname. It's possible the reference to Dita and the name of the character also nods to the show Cabaret, since the story is set in Weimar Germany and the Emcee uses trilingual greetings (German, French, English) in his songs. Maybe Ella is meant to be a German character in the otherwise-French troupe. The name "Von Terra" would mean "of the earth", which is probably an allusion to the undead rising from the ground.

Here's Ella's chipboard poem.

Knowing too much is sometimes a crime

Especially when you work with society's slime

A theatre of lust and gore, soaked in disdain

A place where one wrong word brings more than just pain.

And a rewrite.

Knowing the wrong things can number your days

When you are among a society's strays

As lusting and gore play their shows on the stage

Learning too much can bring forth evil's rage.

Ella died on May 12, 1905, making her the second chronological death of the five. (Larmes de Sang was first, then Ella, then Carotte, Madame, and the Maitre). I'm not sure if anything relevant to Ella's theme occurred on this day in history. It certainly has nothing to do with Dita (and not even Von Teese's namesake, actress Dita Parlo).

This poems says:

Ella Von Terra knew the true secrets of the show

So management decided she just had to go

So her lips were stitched shut, then hanged left to die

A well constructed suicide note, a perfectly written lie.

And a rewrite.

Ella saw all of the truth of the show

So management knew she needed to go

Stitched, hanged and framed, abandoned to die

Falsified suicide; grandiose lie

Ella's unboxing fortunately had no nonsense. No hat cradles to navigate or stupid tape on the tissue. Here she is out and looking incredibly wicked.

Ella's hair is black and side-parted to her left, styled in a perfect vintage wavy bob. The shaping is great, but the rooting is a little off, such that I had to cut out a few locks that didn't want to fall to one side of the part or the other and wouldn't blend out into either side when combed. The hair is also very dry and slightly ratty in texture, and it hurts the look a bit.  I couldn't detect any gel in her hair, and it wasn't all that snarled when I washed it and combed it with conditioner. That didn't really improve her hair texture, so I'll look into getting her a fabric-softener soak sometime.

On her right, she has a purple satin rosette decorating her hair.

This works like many LDD hair accessories--there's some velcro hooks on the back and you just pat the piece onto the hair and slide it down a bit so it'll catch and stay on. 

LDD used this system on many dolls, and still does it to this day, as seen with Return of the Living Dead Dolls Sadie's hair bow.

The flower was held down by an elastic around her face, chinstrap-style, for packaging, but she doesn't need the elastic and it messed with the shape of her hair.

The focal point of the whole doll is her face and mouth specifically. 

But first, the rest of her face.

Ella's skin is all stark white. Her eyes are painted similarly to Madame La Mort's with their half-lidded style. She has fancy two-pointed upper lashes and purple eyeshadow on her lid and around her upper eyes, and blue airbrushing shading her below. Her irises are mint-colored with no outlines, and her small pupils have a ring of white around them. Her  brows are the upturned angry shape LDD uses quite often, and have a very similar effect to Dahlia's own rendition, making Ella look very angry and confident. She may be a sultry dancer, but also, she hates you. Ella does not have a beauty mark like her inspiration Dita Von Teese. (Dita's is actually a tattoo!) Her right eyebrow is a little higher than her left and it had a smudge on the top edge.

Ella's standout costume piece is her mouth veil, which apes pieces associated with an Orientalist or "harem" style, and it works to paint Ella as an "exotic" or "mystery woman" dancer who uses her clothing to tease and allure. It's a good match for vintage burlesque. The veil itself is an ultrafine black mesh (almost like the filter on a coffee machine) and it's finished with purple trim around the edges. The piece covers her whole lower face below the nose and hangs past her collar. The way it attaches is with two small elastic ear loops, kind of like a personal protective face mask.

If this is a COVID face mask, though, it's very much a Lana del Rey COVID face mask.

I can't help but worry for the longevity of the elastic loops here, but they felt pretty thick and not overly stretchy, so maybe they'll hold up. The veil is actively held down in position by her nose keeping the top edge from riding up higher, so it's even less COVID-safe because her nose is technically out.

The piece has to be ticklish.

While part of me thinks this veil ought to have been more opaque and/or completely hide the gore underneath, I can't deny that the way it is works entirely well. I think she looks very scary and cool the way she's set up, and maybe this isn't the character to have the gore completely hidden for.

And yes, Ella does not have a beautiful reveal under her tantalizing veil. She has a rather horrid surprise, and that's a great gag subverting the promise of glamor. Under the veil, Ella's mouth is laced shut and blood has burst from her mouth in all directions.

The stitches are thick and crossed, painted a brown color with some red from the blood she's been losing. All around the mouth is a two-layered splatter of red that really looks like Ella has been spluttering and coughing blood from the back of her throat, though it could just as well be from the mutilation of sewing her lips. With this paint, the sculpt of her underlying lips is really hard to make out, and the mouth combined with her angry brows makes her stitches look kind of like snarling teeth in a really edgy and fun way. While Ella is certainly a victim, it's hard to know if she had ever been a particularly nice person. Is she righteously angry for what was done to her, or does she have a truly aggressive and cruel side? Is it just Ella's mouth that makes her expression so frightening, or would she have been bad news before she began to carry dangerous information?

Regardless, this was clearly a symbolic mutilation to signify that the murder was motivated by keeping Ella from telling secrets. With Siren, her death seemed motivated by harming her singing career, with Siren's strangulation and lip sewing both being attacks on her voice and ability to sing.

Ella almost certainly debuts this mold because the prior stitched mouth, debuted on Siren and reused for Isaac, would have been long out of production and only existed during the swivel-joint era of the dolls. While some specialty sculpts (devil horns, ripped cheek, bumpy face, scream) were re-molded for the ball-joint system, LDD apparently decided to do something different when they finally needed a stitch-mouthed character again so many years later, and I can appreciate that. I wonder if they had any other plans for this head--was it intended for some licensed character idea that fell through, or else did they think it would come in handy for a Resurrection Siren or Isaac (or even Calico?) We may never know; LDD slowed down and the classic era ended not long after Series 33, and Ella was the only doll with this sculpt. 

There is the possibility that Ella's crossed stitches are in the service of kind of a pun--they could visually read as a XXX warning befitting a racy club dancer. 

...Is that sex-shaming? Is that a whole other level of cruelty she was put through? I feel like her killer invoking that on her would be a real "pot, meet kettle" scenario. If that's a part of her visual design, then that can explain why Ella looks so very fierce and murderous, but I think she could also turn it around and own it. I was inspired to play on that visual association for a poster I made for her later, but overall, I generally prefer LDD to land chaster and away from such painful topics. For what it's worth, Ella's three crosses of stitches are not centered under her nose, so the reading as letters could be wholly unintended.

Here's Ella's face next to Siren's. Purple stitched performer dolls represent!

Siren's sculpt has more elegant parallel stitches, and the cord is sculpted with a yarn or rope-like texture as well as disappearing into indented holes above and below her lips. Without wiping Ella, I can't tell how defined her lips are. Though I'd love to find an incomplete loose copy of her to use as a custom base and explore more potential with her unique mold. Maybe a counterpart to Isaac or a more explicit rag-doll character than Calico? 

I think it's a real shame that of the three stitched-mouthed dolls, not a one of them was portrayed as an actor in silent film! That'd be too repetitive to appear alongside Siren within Series 5 itself, but you could absolutely have a classic 1920s black-and-white celebrity doll with a stitched mouth, acting in silent film because they cannot talk!

I think Ella's concept and aesthetic are very Siren, but her attitude is much more Dahlia, with that same scary-badass personality I feel from her, possibly even amplified for Ella! And then Jezebel shares her performing sphere.

Ella's top is cut above her midriff and has thin purple ribbon straps. It's a wholly-sequined piece with purple on the body and a row of black sequin trim at the top. It's very glitzy and unlike other LDD clothing.

Velcro down the back, like normal.

The piece is in a similar sphere to the jacket worn by Viv, but Ella's got classic outright sequins, while Viv's piece was made a different way.

Acquiring the Zombini/Viv set proper and more fully reinventing the copy I got is still on the table.

Ella's skirt comes elastic-banded to keep it tidy for the box.

Here it is unleashed!

The piece is all satin, with the body being black and the three tiers being trimmed by purple ruffles. The middle of the skirt is sewn high, forming a rectangular sort of frame for Ella's legs while her waist is still covered. The ruffles are all sewn down at the back, and the skirt velcros partially down the back. The look is very can-can, and it's fitting for a grim theme since the classic can-can tune was initially written to discuss Orpheus visiting the Underworld!

Ella came packaged with a plastic sleeve around her legs to protect her from staining, but it's an unfunny joke because it clearly did absolutely nothing. Her legs, which we're meant to see, have dark stains on them despite the plastic, and the plastic itself is untouched. Come on, Mezco.

Ella is wearing the LDD sandals in black, and I think she and Larmes de Sang are the last classic original-character LDDs to wear them. Nobody in Series 34 or 35 had them, and neither did Halloween 2018's Vesper. Why does this make me so sad?

I really like Ella's color palette. Her black, white, and purple palette is really well-executed and shakes up the Series 33 team in a welcome manner. Her costume is really unique and her face is super scary, making her a compelling presence. She has a lot of attitude, and has a vague "monster in disguise" vibe with how inhuman and scary her stitched bloody mouth makes her look.

I knew I wanted to lean hard into a purple/yellow contrast for Ella, and that started with the background of her cabaret poster. I painted her over flat, though I left the mesh of her mask out since I would have to overlay a transparent shape in another program to add that part. I also added a curtain behind her to use the frame more, also purple. The text became orange, which suited her and did a nice flip from Carotte's poster--an orange-themed poster with yellow text. I made the background of Ella's poster a greenish tone. I think the pose, the colors, and composition are perfect here. Her cabaret poster may have ended up the best one of the four.

And here's the quartet now.

For Ella's pictures onstage, I used an orange sweatshirt for the curtain, knowing I could edit it in post to yellow. I first staged Ella's body hanged and shrouded by a cloth over her bloody mouth, topped by her flower in a similar comical fashion to Madame's photo wearing her hat over her shroud. I put a tipped chair below her, and the faked suicide note, but also provided directly contradictory evidence that exposes it's all a sham covering up her murder.

And then some photos of her dancing. I tried using colored lights and a small riser element with a coffin lid, but I wasn't too sold. It was more challenging given that the yellow background was part of the color editing and thus my lighting choices couldn't be colors that prevented me from tweaking the background correctly.

Ella shone best without the mood lighting, where the colors could pop alone.

This last photo gave me Ella's "in the element" picture with the silhouetted figures. Here's the sequence now:

Attended by Angus, Gluttony, and Dottie Rose's silhouettes.

And some more pictures on stage, and some portraits.

And some drama in the troupe. Ella leaned in for a kiss, but the Maitre realized it was a no-go.

"What are you trying to say--oh. Oh, non!"

"I am with Carotte; adieu!"
"There now, my girl. They are shallow men. You are beautiful."

Poor Ella. 

And as with Jezebel, I used the burlesque theme to stage a more elaborate show. Ella got placed in a drinks-themed set with an oversized martini glass and some alternate clothing pieces while the boys hype her up as the centerpiece. The set does feel a little cozier and sparer and cheaper, and part of that comes from my brilliant idea to shoot this in daylight, but I think it suits the vibe of a seedy cabaret.

Here's Jez vs. Ella.

And posters for her show.

Unfortunately, I may slip all the way down the slope, after all. I'm beginning to be tempted to complete the series with Larmes de Sang...wouldn't she look great paired against green tones?

So that was Ella Von Terra, and she's a really cool doll. I love her burlesque theme being subverted by the teasing costume only having nasty gore to show, and her colors and styling are really strong. Her hair's shape is great, her face is very scary and intimidating, and she's a welcome injection of a unique color into the Moulin Morgue series. Ella's hair is puffy and dry-feeling and not super tidily parted, and her costume badly stained her and made a mockery of the plastic ostensibly meant to protect her, but she's overall a very interesting and cohesive doll.