The giallo genre takes on true crime with the Australia-set THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

When the charred corpse of a woman – shot in the throat and her face smashed in to further hinder identification – turns up on an Australian beach, retired detective Timpson (Ray Milland, THE UNINVITED) comes out of retirement and begs his way onto the case to the consternation of captain Nottingham (Antonio Ferrandis, TRISTANA) and university-educated lead detective Ramsey (Ramiro Oliveros, SWAMP OF THE RAVENS). While Ramsey conjectures her death in the aftermath of a rape based on evidence of recent sexual intercourse and lights upon local pervert Quint (Giacomo Assandri, THE SPY CONNECTION), Timpson thinks it is more important to identify her in order to determine what really happened to her. While Timpson follows up on what he has in the way of clues – from the Chinese yellow silk pyjamas she wore to the sack used as the accelerant which contained a few grains of rice – competitive Ramsey hits upon the idea to display the corpse for public viewing which generates a possible lead when a woman (Monica Rey) comes forward claiming the girl is her estranged daughter. Meanwhile, Dutch student Glenda (Dalila Di Lazzaro, PHENOMENA) evades contact with the police over an inquiry that might involve a missing woman with whom she had an aborted lesbian encounter while also juggling a trio of lovers – respectable Professor Henry Douglas (Mel Ferrar, THE GREAT ALLIGATOR), German glass worker Roy (Howard Ross, WEREWOLF WOMAN), and Italian student/waiter Antonio (Michele Placido, PLOT OF FEAR) – all of whom are jealous and one or more, increasingly violent.

An Italian/Spanish co-production set in Australia with no sign of an Australian accent – even Rod Mullinar (PATRICK) as Ramsey's partner and Timpson's protégé is dubbed on the English track – THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE draws inspiration from the murder of an Australian girl in 1934 whose identity could not be established but whose yellow pyjamas conjured up exoticism in the minds of the public who were allowed to view her body preserved in a bath of formalin in hopes of a positive identification. The identification that closed the case at the time and the circumstances behind it would prove spoiler-some for those who have not viewed the film yet, but the film is not a strict yet updated telling of the case, but some of the more salacious bits of the film's backstory could be conjectured as the sort of ideas conjured up by the public reading about the case back in the thirties. The mystery of the film requires a certain low-key approach that may put off fans of more traditional gialli (it certainly took this reviewer more than one sitting when the film first came out on DVD), but it actually is one of the genre's more tightly-plotted and structurally-diverting entries coming so late in the genre's timeframe. The Australian setting is novel and Riz Ortolani's score is a nice departure from the themes he would rework for the genre throughout the late seventies and early eighties, and Amanda Lear provides two songs for the soundtrack including the wonderful "Your Yellow Pyjama" which featured members of Goblin on the instruments. A former production designer who worked on the likes of FELLINI SATYRICON and DANGER: DIABOLIK, Flavio Mogherini became a jobbing director in the seventies, helming his only other giallo – the underwhelming DELITTO PASSIONALE the same year as his death.

Long unavailable in the United States apart from bootlegs of a poor-quality Dutch-subtitled PAL cassette, THE PYJAMA GIRL CASE was released on DVD in 2002 by Blue Underground with an anamorphic transfer and a featurette on the true crime (along with an eight-page graphic novel tucked into the case). While the DVD transfer was fine for the time, Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray from a 2K scan of the original camera negative feels like a revelation. Once a sunny but somewhat drab with occasionally striking visuals, the high definition transfer looks more vibrant with the Australian and Spanish stand-in locations spiked with primary colors – including enough red to make one wonder if some color coordination went into the extras casting – glowing neon, and saturated gels, exteriors are simultaneously star-filtered and crisply detailed, and the sounds stage interiors also evince more character in their shabbiness. Audio options include English and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono tracks with clear dialogue and a tactile presence to Lear's vocals that may bring shivers or grate on the ears, and English subtitle are included for the Italian track and SDH subtitles for the English dub (Ramsey is called Taylor on the dub). The opening and closing credits are presented in English or Italian via seamless branching depending upon the audio option chosen. The English credits have always started with the music over a few seconds of black screen while the Italian sequence not only includes a distributor logo but also a disclaimer against the opening shot freeze frame in place of the black screen. The Italian opening credits include Spanish co-production credit names while the English sequence sports mainly Italian technicians. The end credits on the English version have always run on black while the Italian credits roll over a freeze frame of the final shot.

The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historian Troy Howarth who draws parallels between the film and Dario Argento's SLEEPLESS with the old school retired detective introduced and exiting the film in similar manners, disdaining psychology for old fashioned police work, and also noting that the visual restraint shown by director Mogherini in his direction works to the advantage of the story's structure – with only one flashback denoted in traditional means of blurry-edged filtration – along with some factoids on the true crime case, and how the film is a giallo yet subverts genre expectations. More off-putting than the usual potted cast and crew biographies to fill gaps is the somewhat juvenile humor that accompanies the film's more salacious bits which would seem more fitting accompaniment to some of the bottom tier sex and gore gialli of the late same period like PLAY MOTEL or GORE IN VENICE (the Scorpion Blu-ray of which also features a Howarth commentary track). Author and critic Michael Mackenzie appears in the video interview "Small World" (28:30) focusing on the internationalism of the giallo, in which transnational co-production deals to compete with the Hollywood machine exploited the allure of exotic travel in the genre which was equally dominated by the quota requirements of the production partners, from supporting American leads with co-stars and supporting performers of representative nationalities to filling out the crew quota with either fake names or crediting real technicians who did not work on the film (with credits in the title sequences of different versions differing in content) to the requirements that a certain percentage of the film be shot in a particular country exploited either as itself or standing in for another country.

In "Good Bad Guy" (31:46), actor Ross recalls his first meeting with Mogherini, the intention to bring him to Australia for the climax which ended up being shot in Italy, and working with Di Lazzaro whose nude and sex scenes utilized a body double (apparently a fact not known at the time of the commentary as Howarth made the fair assumption that Di Lazzaro did not mind doing nudity based on her appearance in FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN) although it is noticeable once one knows. He also discusses his propensity for playing bad guys, his other female co-stars, other directors he has worked with, and anecdotes about some of his other film credits. "A Study in Elegance" (23:17) is an interview with editor Alberto Tagliavia (SPECTRES) who was Mogherini's editor on all but two of his films by contract. He mentions that most of the film was shot in Spain, which suggests that Raul Artigot (CANNIBAL MAN) may indeed have worked on the film as he is credited with photography on the Italian version while the DP credited on the English version Carlo Carlini (SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE) – credited with lighting only on the Italian version – might have shot the Australian and Italian portions. This prevented him from his usual practice of editing while Mogherini was shooting which would allow them to address issues in the shooting early on, and that he and Mogherini did three complete edits of the film: the first straightforward, the second of which he does not recall the specifics, and the third starting with the end and unfolding as the film does now (although it is hard to imagine a linear version).