Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Academy Award winner Ray Milland in one of his final features … giving the universal hand gesture for masturbation. Based loosely on a 1934 true crime in Australia, the Italian-made The Pyjama Girl Case is a methodical mystery cast in a quasi-giallo style by director/co-writer Flavio Mogherini, who puts his art and production design experience to fine use.

On the beach, a woman’s body is found charred, violated, shot and with her head bashed in. The uncharacteristic brutality of the case prompts retired inspector Thompson (Milland, Dial M for Murder) to come out of retirement on a volunteer basis to help local police sort this puzzler out.

Meanwhile, we meet Linda (the striking Dalila Di Lazzaro, Phenomena), whose sexual partners always hide her panties, and believe me, she has many — partners, that is. Despite being married, she’s still sleeping with past lovers, who include a physician sugar daddy and a lovely woman with a pair of yellow PJs.

Linda’s several conquests are poorly introduced, but not in a way that clouds the narrative. Besides, like a skilled police procedural should, the focus is on Milland, pursuing leads such as grains of white rice. Mogherini pulls off a near-masterful turn in the final third, but even if you see it coming, you’re bound to genuinely be disturbed by the public gawking at the body on display, and even more at Linda throwing all reason away in a moment of self-destruction. —Rod Lott

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Being the most pure mystery of the bunch, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase is arguably the most enjoyable entry of the four-film franchise, even if the leads’ antics are entirely rote by now. The important thing is, they still amuse, and go out on a high note. It’s kind of a shame there weren’t more.

In this adventure, two sister spinsters announce plans to donate their estate to a children’s hospital. The catch is their father once upon a time designated they must live in it every night for 20 consecutive years, and now, they have roughly two weeks to go. When their chauffeur turns up dead, it’s obvious to us someone’s trying to scare them away by murdering the man and, thus, foil the old maids’ good intentions.

To the loony, incompetent authorities, however, led by Capt. Tweedy (Frank Orth, The Lost Weekend), it’s a long jump to a conclusion of suicide. Luckily, Nancy (Bonita Granville) and platonic pal Ted (Frankie Thomas, whose lower register suggests dropped testicles post-Nancy Drew … Trouble Shooter) appear on the crime scene to fiddle with pieces of evidence and plant a false one. Oh, kids!

When Nancy learns the twist — the one we get from the start because, oh, y’know, it’s in the title — she exclaims, “Boy, isn’t this a pancake!” And that sums up the clean-behind-the-ears appeal of this picture, strengthened by anachronistic plot devices as ice delivery and telegrams. At an hour long, Staircase is hardly taxing. To borrow another two dated exclamations that could sub as a review, “Swell!” and “Hot diggity!” —Rod Lott

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Nancy Drew’s third big-screen adventure gets under way when her lawyer father (John Litel) is alerted to come help Matt (Aldrich Bowker), a crabby old farmer accused of murdering a neighbor. Matt says the sheriff is “a gol darn liar.” Mr. Drew frames their sudden getaway as a farm vacation so Nancy won’t stick her snoopy nose in his gol darn business. She does anyway.

Coincidentally, vacationing there at the same time is Ted Nickerson (Frankie Thomas, TV’s Tom Corbett, Space Cadet), Nancy’s clumsy, platonic-for-now pal who quickly tires of her investigating nature: “Now, look, will ya cut the bubble-gum talk and give?” (I’m not sure what his problem is; he’s the one wearing a sweater with a hand-drawn sailboat on it, surrounded by random names like Butch Hogan, Darby McGraw, Popeye, Jimmy, Jiggs, Jeepers Creepers and Fanny W.)

I expected Nancy to get herself involved in crazy farm shenanigans; I didn’t expect to encounter one of the era’s cringing African-American dumb-goon stereotypes. Here, it’s in the form of Apollo (Willie Best, aka Sleep ‘n’ Eat, The Ghost Breakers), who tries to hide a hot roasted chicken up his shirt and pass off the pain with, “I guess I jes’ born jitterbug.” Almost as bad, he’s terrified of ghosts, which causes Apollo to burst through fences when Ted is accidentally covered in flour. Repeat: flour.

Racism aside, franchise director William Clemens has a knack for staging some lively set pieces that double as both action and physical comedy, from Nancy and Ted running from a live bull (caveat: via sped-up film) to trying to land a biplane after the pilot bails. Loop-de-loops ensue. As far as patience goes, Trouble Shooter is no trouble at all. —Rod Lott

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As the title so blatantly gives away, Nancy Drew … Reporter finds America’s sweetheart sleuth giving journalism a try. Not for altruistic reasons, but for the local newspaper’s prize of “$50 and a gold medal.” Leave it to Nancy (Bonita Granville) to pull a switcheroo so she can cover a front-page murder investigation.

Ignoring all journalism ethics, Nancy throws the concept of being unbiased out the window so she can work to free the woman she’s just sure is wrongly imprisoned: “Isn’t it a whopper?” In doing so, Nancy gets in a fender-bender, drives dangerously, meets a boxer named Soxie, and even eats breakfast cereal annoyingly. You know, come to think of it, Nancy’s kind of a manipulative nag, but boy, she sure can solve a mystery!

The second of the four-film series proves as frothy and accessible as the first, if you can get past the Asian stereotype who pops up at a Chinese restaurant where Nancy and friends are short by 65 cents. Thus, she, Ted (Frankie Thomas, whose character is suddenly no longer named Ned), Ted’s little sister and her pal Killer literally sing for their supper, and the crowd digs Killer’s killer Donald Duck impression.

The sequence serves no other purpose than to wedge in a musical number, which audiences of the era apparently ate up. Crack open the Flick Attack fortune cookie for my verdict: “I’ll allow it.” (Also, your lucky numbers are 07, 16, 33 and 84.) —Rod Lott

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In her first screen outing, Nancy Drew — Detective, Carolyn Keene’s all-American teen she-Sherlock (Bonita Granville) is out to solve the sudden disappearance of an old biddy who was due to donate a bundle of cash to the local girls’ club to build a swimming pool. And Nancy sure as shit wants that swimming pool!

Getting no help from “that conceited tweet-tweet” police Capt. Tweedy (Frank Orth), Nancy enlists the help of platonic pal Ned Nickerson (Frankie Thomas), the clumsy neighbor boy with the side-swirly haircut and propensity to drop tools on his toes. He’s also a dud in overall social skills, according to Nancy: “You’re about as chivalrous as an oyster!”

In the climax, Nancy threatens the bad guys with a gun, holding it with disgust as if it were a penis.

The squeaky-clean, super-efficient mystery involves chasing a pigeon carrying a secret message; slapstick with a wrench; dressing Ned in drag, disguised as a nurse; and communicating via the cutting-edge technology of Morse code. Speaking of dated, the flick is filled with now-odd slang, like “Aw, stop disturbin’ the molecules!” Even when presented in context, that made no sense to me, but like the rest of the hour-long adventure, I sure did enjoy it. —Rod Lott

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