'The Pyjama Girl Case' (1977) – Flavio Mogherini.

While director Flavio Mogherini's initially sedate, late-cycle Giallo might seem relatively pallid due to its dearth of cartoonishly hyperbolic violence, the yellow-spined genre became infamous for, the crepuscular, circuitous, altogether doomy narrative is both a fascinating and frequently distressing dissection of the brutal murder, and post-mortem disfiguration of a once beautiful young woman. Based on a true-crime story, Mogherini's quality screamplay forcefully engages from the gruesome discovery of the victim's grimly charred corpse to a genuinely thrilling, nerve-shreddingly exhilarating climax, Flavio Mogherini's morbid and moody Giallo 'The Pyjama Girl Case' is well worth closer investigation. Not only does Flavio Mogherini eschew the flamboyant gore of a Fulci or Martino, he also dispenses with the more familiar trope of 'valiant amateur sleuth vs black-gloved maniac', having crusty Hollywood veteran Ray Milland as the retired, but anything but retiring Inspector Timpson 'assisting' the younger inexperienced Ramsey (Ramiro Oliveros) by doggedly pounding Sydney's murkier locales in order to discover the shadowy perpetrator of this singularly onerous murder. Oft overlooked, 'The Pyjama Girl Case' is a rewarding thriller, and not unlike Duccio Tessari's sinuous and similarly meticulous Giallo 'The Bloodstained Butterfly, Mogherini's fabulously entertaining film's continued fascination lies in its bravura storytelling, and engaging performances from an especially fine cast, supported by an ear-wormingly wonderful score by maestro Riz Ortolani, one of my personal favourite themes, his hauntingly Moroder-infused, darkly menacing score doing much to heighten the film's innately melancholy milieu concerning the wearing odyssey of an octogenarian cop on what might prove to be his swansong case. 'The Pyjama Girl Case' with its grisly murder, striking, yet weirdly unsettling Sydney setting remains one of the more idiosyncratic Gialli of the period and comes very highly recommended by this particularly obsessive Gialli fan!