Films That Witness Madness

review

THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE

Flavio Mogherini's 1977 film, THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE, is a very unconventional giallo. For starters, we have no black-gloved killer stalking and slashing young fashion models. There's barely a body count and nothing resembling a typical giallo set-piece turns up over the 90-some minute running time. Rather, THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE is a quiet, moody, desolate piece of work, set almost entirely within the realm of the police procedural with only brief stops in the land of high melodrama to break up the pace. While this might not please the Argento base of giallo fans, those who enjoy solid, intelligent and involving murder mysteries will find more than enough enjoyment here.

The partially burnt body of a woman is found stashed in an abandoned car on a beach in Australia. She had been beaten and shot, the massive burns to her face making identification impossible for the investigators in charge of the case. Detective Thompson, played by Oscar winner Ray Milland, recently retired from the force, is allowed in on the investigation. He's more concerned with finding the identity of the young woman while the other officers are more than happy to beat a confession out of a local recluse simply for closure.

In a secondary story line, we meet a young woman named Linda, played by the beautiful Dalila di Lazzaro, who has separate relationships with three men, one of whom she eventually marries. Either completely bored with her life or simply unable to choose a life she can be content with - when her much older lover, Henry, asks her the question "Linda, why can't you be happy?", she responds simply "I don't know" - Linda bounces between the three men until she can no longer stand her present situation. She runs off to Henry, a successful doctor, but doesn't find Henry all that happy to hear from her. Completely alone, she turns to prostitution. The two story lines converge in a shattering - albeit obvious - climax.

The element of mystery is, rather obviously, central to the giallo. Without it, these films would be nothing but pretty slasher films, devoid of interest. While we know from the 10 minute mark who the victim is - though the film doesn't explicitly tell us this, it is rather obvious - we still don't know the how or the why. Much like George Sluizer's excellent THE VANISHING, knowing the outcome changes the way the film plays the second time around.

Watching THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE again recently, I was struck by just how sad this film really is and by how well Mogherini conveys a deep sense of isolation. Each of the characters seem to live in a emotional vacuum. Antonio, an Italian, finds himself struggling to make it in a city hostile to immigrants. Henry is surrounded by the old and wealthy, suffering their glances when he takes Linda to lunch. Detective Thompson, the man who will ultimately solve the case but pay dearly for it, is rejected by the force because of his age. And Linda, a woman pawed at and fawned over, is unable to grasp the happiness she desperately craves. The characters of THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE are all trapped within their own lives, each of them deeply scarred, worthy of our pity but not requiring it. In a genre full of cardboard cutouts and exaggerated caricatures, these characters feel very real, very human and that helps distinguish THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE from the majority of it's contemporaries.

Highly Recommended.

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