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 THE
PYJAMA GIRL CASE (Blue
Underground) 1977. Giallo murder mystery. Not rated. Some nudity and a
small amount of blood and gore. The film opens with a young girl finding a
burned and mutilated body on the beach. The police immediately start an
investigation and start looking for psychopathic serial killers. Retired
Inspector Thompson (Ray Milland) is called in on the case and starts using
old fashioned police techniques to find the identity of the girl so that
they can find the killer. To help with the identification, the police
embalm the corpse and put her in a glass display case. The public at large
are allowed to view the body in the hopes that someone would come forth
and identify the body. Naturally, there are charlatans who come forward,
but it doesn’t take long before the official case is closed and a
murderer confesses. The only problem is that Inspector Thompson knows that
the case is not solved and now it’s left up to him to find the real
killer even at the risk of his own life.
The Pyjama Girl Case
is another rare Giallo unearthed by the folks at Blue Underground. The
film as it begins seems to follow two stories at the same time. Two
stories that are not connected in any way. It’s as the end approaches
that the two stories converge and you find yourself saying. “Ah, now I
get it.” That alone makes for one of the more interesting films I have
seen in quite some time. Add to that the wonderful Ray Milland. From the
first scene where you see him watering the flowers in his greenhouse, he
comes across as the embodiment of his character. Sure, we know he’s Ray
Milland, but he is also Inspector Thompson. His portrayal of the retired
inspector is so dead on that you find yourself forgetting Ray Milland
after a while. The beautiful Dalia DiLazzaro plays Glenda Blythe, a woman
with a predilection for multiple partners. This is one of those movies
that will play well a few times, but since it has such a bizarre scene
construction I could see people getting tired of it after a couple of
viewings. It’s not really a gimmick, but it does get a little confusing
until the end. The ‘based on a true story’ tag is slim at best. There
was a case like this in
Australia
back in the 30’s and it still never has had a satisfactory resolution.
This film uses the bare bones of the case and throws away a lot of the
information of the case. So, not really a true story. Blue Underground
gives us a beautiful Widescreen 1.85:1/16:9 print. As far as extras we get
a 30 minute documentary on the author of the book this film was loosely
based on and he goes into great detail on the actual case. There’s a
trailer of the film and the best extra is a small booklet of the comic
TABOO that has the story by Eddie Campbell that deals with the Pyjama
case. The Pyjama Girl Case is a
quirky film that pays off at the end, but may confuse people as it tends
to plod along with stuff that you have no idea of whether or not it is
connected. -Douglas A. Waltz
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