User:Charles Reisman/The Drivers Seat

dentikit (also known as The Driver's Seat) is a 1974 Italian drama film directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi. Based on the 1970 novella The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark, it is a psychological drama starring Elizabeth Taylor and Ian Bannen, and featuring Andy Warhol.

Plot[edit]
Lise, a mentally unbalanced middle-aged woman, travels from her home in London to Rome, Italy where she embarks on a fatal destiny that she had helped to arrange for herself – a premeditated search for someone, anyone, with whom she could form a dangerous liaison. Lise meets a variety of people during her journey and stay in Rome who include Bill, a lecherous British businessman that she meets on the plane to Rome who tries to seduce her; Carlo, a young man whom Lise tries to know more about; an elderly Englishwoman named Mrs. Fiedke whom Lise bonds with to go shopping; and Pierre, a Frenchman who picks up Lise hoping to seduce her as well.

The film is told in a non-linear narrative as throughout the film are scenes of the local Rome police interviewing all the people that Lise interacted with as well as investigating the reasons for her strange behavior that led up to her own murder.

Cast[edit]

 * Elizabeth Taylor as Lise
 * Ian Bannen as Bill
 * Guido Mannari as Carlo
 * Mona Washbourne as Mrs. Helen Fiedke
 * Luigi Squarzina as Lead Detective
 * Maxence Mailfort as Pierre
 * Andy Warhol as English Lord
 * Anita Bartolucci as Saleswoman
 * Gino Giuseppe as Police Commissioner

External links[edit]

 * The Driver's Seat at IMDb
 * Copy of short note from Elizabeth Taylor to Muriel Spark about the role of Lise (National Library of Scotland archive)