The Driver's Seat (1974)

Mentally disturbed spinster Lise experiences a series of bizarre encounters in Rome as she searches for someone to murder her.

Director:

Giuseppe Patroni Griffi

Writers:

Raffaele La Capria (screenplay), Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (screenplay)

Stars:

Elizabeth Taylor, Ian Bannen, Guido Mannari

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Elizabeth Taylor	...	Lise
Ian Bannen	...	Bill
Guido Mannari	...	Carlo
Mona Washbourne	...	Mrs. Helen Fiedke
Luigi Squarzina	...	Lead Detective
Maxence Mailfort	...	Pierre
Andy Warhol	...	English Lord
Anita Bartolucci	...	Saleswoman
Gino Giuseppe	...	Police Commissioner (as Gino Giuseppe C.S.C.)
Marino Masé	...	Traffic Policeman
Bedy Moratti	...	Dress Shop Owner
Dino Mele	...	Police Captain
Alessandro Perrella	...	Detective (as Alessandro Perrella C.S.C.)
Quinto Parmeggiani	...	Hotel Waiter
Nadia Scarpitta	...	Elderly Lady at airport (as Nadia Scarpitta Pernice)

Storyline

Lise, a mentally unbalanced middle-aged woman travels toward a fatal destiny that she had helped to arrange, as if her own extinction will bring a meaningful existence to its wished-for end - a premeditated search for someone, anyone, with whom she could form a dangerous liaison.

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Plot Keywords:

murder | see through bra | rome italy | surrealism | police investigation | 

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Taglines:

Was she really mad enough to plot her own murder?

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian English

Release Date:

10 October 1975 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Driver's Seat

Filming Locations:

Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cinecoord International, Rizzoli Film, Studio Hamburg

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Paramount first announced this in 1970, with Herbert Ross directing from a Frederic Raphael script.

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Quotes

Bill: I'm staying at the Metropole. I'll book you a room there next to mine. The company will pay for it because I have to have an orgasm a day on my macrobiotic diet, you see?
Lise: I am an idealist.
Bill: Oh, I only meant that... er... if we get acquainted, I think somehow that I'm your type, you know?
Lise: Do you think so?
[he nods]
Lise: Well you're mistaken. When I diet, I diet. And when I orgasm, I orgasm. I don't believe in mixing the two cultures.

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Connections

Featured in Midnight Movie Madness: 50 Movie Mega Pack (2016)

User Reviews

It works on a certain level

This obscure movie, which has been so unfairly panned by the critics of its time, actually manages to deliver what I believe was the intention, a disintegrating world of a psychotic woman. As viewers, we are somewhere in the middle of two layers of realities, the one being the compulsive psyche of the main character, Lise, portrayed by Liz Taylor, and the other one being the absurd and incoherent events in her surroundings. I quite like this film, I had expected a B-movie with second rate production values, but I was at least partly mistaken, the cinematography is effective in painting the psychotic state of mind, example; Lise turning to her right, framed in the left side of the screen, when addressing someone. Another scene, where Lise is attempting to get in touch with a woman she befriended just recently, who may be stuck in the lavatory from some illness, we see Lise at the same time completely absorbed by her own mirror image, disconnected from any real emotional concern over the lady that might be in peril. Maybe some think these are cheap means of making a weird and psychotic setting, still the movie makes the viewer access the process of disintegration of Lise. Furthermore, some scenes are chillingly before its time regarding terror events and crimes; terror do pop up everywhere these days, and maybe a modern day public can better identify themselves with a confused and disintegrating persona as Lise. We can barely understand our own feelings and our driving forces - how can we then understand the complexity of the human society in terms of terror and conflicts?