The Driver's Seat

This 1974 ‘cult classic’ (a West-German/Italian co-production based on the novel by Muriel Spark) boasts cinematography by three-time Oscar-winner Vittorio Storano. Available for the first time ever in the UK, it has been given the 4K treatment. The psychological drama, told in a non-linear narrative, stars Elizabeth Taylor as a mentally unbalanced woman who travels from Germany to Italy for a very specific reason… and it’s not a holiday…

Main protagonist Lise (Elizabeth Taylor), as we observe from the beginning, is a middle-aged woman who is mentally unbalanced (and that’s an understatement) and prone to aggressive outbursts. She is witnessed in a clothes shop (surrounded by a multitude of undressed female dummies with their heads wrapped in tinfoil) attempting to buy a dress when the sales assistant informs her that the fabric of the dress is 'stain-proof'. This causes Lise to go off on a seemingly unexplained tirade of abuse as she feels she has just been insulted by the very idea that she could possibly stain a dress - so we get a pretty good idea of what kind of woman we are dealing with. The shop in question is in Hamburg - but soon the troubled woman flies off to Rome, Italy - not before being mocked by the cleaner of the flat where she lives for her dishevelled new hairdo and her outfit boasting clashing patterns and garish colours: “Eine spinnt immer… sie gehört in den Zirkus” (‘There’s always one who is mad… she should join a circus”.

Quite what Lise is in search of isn’t immediately made clear – only that she is on a premeditated search for someone to help her fulfil her deranged ambition (more of that later). At the airport, her bizarre behaviour is further emphasized by run-ins with security when she refuses to allow a customs inspector to let him peep into her handbag. This prompts a strip search in a cubicle and when a female security staff member proceeds with examining her, Lise angrily declares that she doesn’t like being touched. On the plane, she sits next to a rather sensitive looking young French man (Maxence Mailfort) – we later discover his name is Pierre. However, looking at him in a probing manner as if to find out whether he might be the right candidate for her plan, she doesn’t actually get the chance to have a conversation with him because she’s interrupted by another male passenger who has seated himself next to her. He is lecherous English businessman Bill (Ian Bannen playing yet another nut-job) - a man who certainly isn't shy when it comes to chatting up Lise. His behaviour so annoys the Frenchman that he gets up and takes another seat towards the front of the aisle. Within seconds Bill is telling Lise (who he's already ravishing with his eyes) that she is his kind of woman and he is her kind of man, whereas she is more concerned (albeit abstracted) about the Frenchman. Unfazed, Bill informs Lise that he is on a macrobiotic diet and has to have an orgasm everyday (listen up lads, here’s a new chat-up line) and virtually has his tongue in her ear. Lise simply allows this to continue and even accepts a lift from Bill from the airport to the hotel. During the ride, where once again he repeats his chat up line and makes another serious pass at her, he is rejected by Lise when, matter of factly, she exclaims that he is not her type of man. Mind you, this doesn't stop him from asking her out to dinner.

A fair chunk of the film is told in flashback with the Italian police interrogating the various persons who came into contact with Lise. We are talking about a motley crew of characters including an aristocratic English Lord (played by an uncredited Andy Warhol... what?) who briefly bumps into her at the airport and gives her a paperback (significant?). Lise also has a go at an unfortunate cleaner when she discovers a smudged glass in the bathroom at her hotel. A more pleasant encounter is the one when Lise meets elderly lady Mrs. Helen Fiedke (Mona Washbourne) by chance and the two embark on a shopping spree in a department store. It is here that Lise steals a silk scarf, which will have some significance when the film reaches its climax.

During her short stay in Rome she meets other characters – one of them is car mechanic Carlo (Guido Mannardi) who helps her up from the ground after a terrorist attack (car bomb) in the street, when Lise falls during the blast and soils her dress in the process (well, she should have bought the non-stainable one)! Carlo misreads her body language (although in this case you can’t blame ‘man’) and almost rapes her, though in a rather amusing scene she manages to lure him out of his own car and then drives off while he’s left by the wayside. Clearly, it’s not sex Lise is after – so exactly what is it that she is after? Finally, she meets poor little Frenchman Pierre again and requests that he do her bidding. Confused at first, he assumes it is an invite for a bit of hanky panky in the local park and follows her, although one wonders why, because one look at her and he should know that Lise is several sandwiches short of a full picnic. Or is he just as deranged, only in a different way? As the two walk down a secluded path, behind them emerges a dishevelled looking Bill and a young woman – clearly he found someone willing enough to complete his daily macrobiotic dietary requirements. However, we won’t give away how things end for Lise and Pierre.

Bizarre! Unsettling! You can say that again! However, fans of Taylor (who presumably was attracted to either the book or the screenplay or both) will be pleased to know that she dominates the entire film and it must be said that she is perfect casting as the unhinged Lise, complete with her messy hair, her garish clothes and her equally garish make-up. The film was not a commercial success upon its original release and is not difficult to see why. It may appeal to the minority who could identify with oddball characters, though Lise is an extreme case by any stretch of the imagination. Ian Bannen's bonkers ‘Bill’ provides much needed humour although even this might just be unintentional.

Apparently, the novel on which this unusual film is based was among Muriel Spark’s personal favourites. Looking at the film version, it is rather difficult to comprehend - that is if one assumes the film adheres closely to Spark's novel. If fans of her most famous book 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' (of which there was a commendable film version) think they are in for a similar experience, then in all likelihood they will be disappointed.

Bonus Features on this Blue-ray release include:

* Intro By Kier-La Janisse, author of House of Psychotic Women (2022, 6 mins)
* Audio Commentary with curator and programmer Millie De Chirico (2022)
* A Lack of Absence (2022, 22 mins): writer and literary historian Chandra Mayor on Muriel Spark and The Driver's Seat
* The Driver’s Seat (credit sequences) (1974, 4 mins)
* Waiting For… (1970, 11 mins): a woman embarks on a filmmaking project after being given a camera and told to capture her everyday reality.
* The Telephone (1981, 4 mins): a young woman enacts imaginative revenge on her boyfriend.
* Darling, Do You Love Me? (1968, 4 mins): in a parody of her media persona, Germaine Greer stars as a terrifyingly amorous woman who pursues a man relentlessly (and is barmier than Taylor’s ‘Lise’!)
* National Theatre of Scotland promo trailer for the film (2015, 2 mins).
* First Pressing Only - Illustrated booklet.