Listen to 4 tracks by Riz Ortolani from the original soundtrack album “La Ragazza dal Pigiama Giallo” (Cinevox Records, MDF 33.119, Italy, 1978)
Yes, it’s Giallo soundtrack time. Giallo, that particularly lurid and trashy seam of crime/ thriller/ horror cinema that blossomed (or maybe bred, like bacteria, would be a more apt verb) in Italy between the late 1960s and 1970s. Who is the girl in the yellow pyjamas? Well, in true Giallo style she’s the dead woman burnt beyond recognition on a beach before the film even starts, and therein lies the problematic nature of the genre; with intersecting tropes such as the objectification, menacing, torturing and murdering of women, or female characters who, if not killed off, are invariably psychotic, duplicitous, nymphomaniacs or addicted to drugs, these films make for difficult viewing in 2020. Yes, some film fans love these movies for their stylish interiors, enviable retro clothes, glamorous European locations and gorgeous acting leads, but for me, it’s the music, which suits me just fine; I can stick on a record for 35 minutes instead of watching two hours of casually gratuitous misogyny, often badly dubbed into Italian.
Apart from some lush, light funk orchestral cues found on the LP, check out the 15 minute sound clip to hear downtempo Euro slow-jam sleaze, tense electronics, a brazen Giorgio Moroder rip-off and the fabulously deadpan voice of Amanda Lear. Who? you ask. No, I’d never heard of her either, but we will all know her as the woman taking her black panther for a stroll on the front cover of the second Roxy Music album, ‘For Your Pleasure’. She was a model from the mid 1960s, became a European disco sensation in the late 70s and then settled into a career as a popular host on 1980s Italian television. She even managed to squeeze in a book about her long and close friendship with Salvador Dali.
Here she is in her 1977 disco heyday and again in 2014 in her less successful guise as an interpreter of classic Elvis Presley. Oh dear...
