Audience Member
The Girl in the Yellow Pyjamas AKA The Pyjama Girl Case is more than just a giallo. It's based on a true story, the 1934 Australian cold case that concerns the murder of Linda Agostini. Born Florence Linda Platt in a suburb of South East London, she left the UK behind for New Zealand after a broken romance, then went to Australia where she worked at a cinema and lived in a boardinghouse. Post-murder gossip claimed that she was a heavy drinker, a jazz baby and someone who entertained plenty of much younger men, which became an issue when she married the Italian expatriate Antonio Agostini. He moved her to Melbourne to try and get away from the bad influences that he felt existed in Sydney, but four years later she disappeared.
Her body was found inside a burning grain sack left behind on the beach. Her head was wrapped in a towel, her body was badly beaten and she had been shot in the neck. But what defined the case were her intricate silk pajamas, complete with a Chinese dragon design, a look that was not the type of clothing favored by your average Australian housewife.
Her body was kept in a formaldehyde bath for a decade and the public was invited to attempt to identify the body. In 1944, dental records proved that the girl in the yellow pajamas was Agostini. Meanwhile, her husband had been in an internment camp for four years during World War II due to his Italian heritage and sympathies toward the Axis. When he returned and was questioned by police commissioner William MacKay -- a man he had once waited on -- he immediately confessed to killing his wife.
There's still some controversy over whether or not he actually confessed. There's just as much as to who the pajama girl was. Regardless, her husband only served three years on manslaughter, as he claimed the shooting was an accident, and was extradited to Italy. Historian Richard Evans wrote The Pyjama Girl Mystery: A True Story of Murder, Obsession and Lies in 2004 and claims that police corruption meant that the case needed to be solved as quickly as possible, as the public sentiment had turned against the cops.
The giallo that is based on the case is really well made and has an intriguing split narrative. On one hand, we have the retired Inspector Thompson (Ray Milland) investigating the case and dealing with his own mortality. Meanwhile, we see Glenda Blythe (Dalila Di Lazzaro, Frankenstein 80, the monster's bride in Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, the headmistress in Phenomena, perhaps the other woman in Carlo Ponti and Sophia Loren's marriage) struggle with the relationships in her life, including her husband Antonio Attolini, her lover Ray Conner (Howard Ross, The New York Ripper) and her mentor Professor Henry Douglas (Mel Ferrer). As the relationship with her husband starts to fall apart, she drifts into prostitution and in a harrowing scene, makes love to two men while one's teenage nephew tries to not make eye contact with her.
Other than the Riz Ortolani score -- Amanda Lear sings on two of them! -- this isn't a fashion-filled bit of fun. This is a dark and dreary journey through the end of a woman's life and the elderly man devoted to finding out the answers to who and why, even if he knows that discovering that truth won't change the fact that he's closer to the end of his story than the beginning. At least he cares more than the modern police, who simply embalm her nude body, put it on display and allows people to stare at it.
I read the other day that giallo films were meant for the people outside of Rome, for provincial tastes that demanded a morality play. I'm not certain that's entirely true, but this movie aspires to art and a heartbreaking moment as we reach the close and realize that the two stories are truly connected in the bleakest of ways.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
laurent b
One of the worst and most boring giallo I have ever seen. Screeplay is so bad, dialogues being the worst part of it. Even the filming is not very good, and it seems that the editor felt asleep during the movie, that would explain why it is so long and full of useless sequences.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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delysid d
this is a nice giallo style movie
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
04/29/18
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Audience Member
Here's the classic giallo La Ragazza Dal Pigiama Giallo, AKA The Pyjama Girl Case. This film is a stylish but morbid thriller about a girl being found dead and the investigators who are trying to solve her case. Parallel to this is her story as we watch her descent into being murdered. It's a very interesting take on the genre, but the strange thing about it is that it's not really a giallo, yet closely resembles one. It's sort of like if you're a fan of McDonald's and decide to eat at Wendy's instead. The pace can be slow at times, but with a bit of patience, the engrossing story can be rewarding. Well-shot with some great performances (including Ray Milland and the beautiful Dalila Di Lazzaro), it's definitely a classic genre film.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The Pyjama Girl Case is a seedy and somewhat stylish piece of giallo cinema. It lacks the body count of most films in the genre, and instead operates as a detective story in which we flashback from the discovery of a corpse (on a beach even a la Laura Palmer in the Twin Peaks pilot) to discover how the murder occured. Lots of seediness and sexual depravity permeate the film, but I still wanted a little more blood, but this giallo focuses more on the detectives and the one victim's problematic life leading up to her death.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/08/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Based on a true story. After the naked and mutilated corpse of a young woman is found on an Australian beach, Detective Thompson (Ray Milland) begins investigating what appears to be an obvious sex crime, but finds his life in danger. To make matters worse, the media has typically sensationalised the incident, but the police have taken it a step further by placing the naked body on display in a glass case in the hopes that the public can identify the mystery woman! Naturally this turns out to be succesful (this scene itself is quite a standout!) - but to cash in people start giving fabricated stories to the police in exchange for their 15 minutes of fame, claiming the woman is a relative. Finally an eccentric woman identifie sthe corpse as her daughter and the strange story of what happened starts to unfold...
Generally, "Pyjama Girl Case" is rather dull but has its moments. Riz Ortolani's electronic score is very effective and Dalila Di Lazzaro's nude scenes help, but this "giallo" is only really worth viewing for genre aficonados.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
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