The Driver's Seat

Rating:
Summary: One of Taylor's top 3 performances
Review: Based on Muriel Spark's harrowing novel (the film inspired another, 'The Public Eye') this is one of Elizabeth Taylor's best performances, which won European Oscars. Why have you never heard about it? It was considered obscene, and parts of it are shocking, still. It demonstrates that Taylor was a very talented actress strangled by the star system in the US, of which she was the last studio product. The film is damaged by extraneous scenes not in the novel, set in a police station. But when Taylor is on screen as perhaps the most neurotic woman in screen history - besides every Joan Crawford performance on film - you won't forget it. Sparks' dialogue, as in 'Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' - taken intact from the novel in Taylor's scenes - is sparkling. To best view this film skip any police scene, and the end will surprise you more as well. It's not too late, Liz - they are filming the musical of 'Sunset Boulevard'.

Rating:
Summary: "IT TAKES ONE DAY TO DIE, ANOTHER TO BE BORN"
Review: Elizabeth Taylor reportedly said those words to her director Griffi when she came on the set the day after she left Burton for their first divorce. So with that mindset she went to work on one of her most unusual, daring and controversial films. From the moment "The Diver's Seat" begins you know you are in a strange place. In Europe the movie was called "Idendikit" so, with two names tagged to it thus making it schizophrenic from the first it easily falls into the realm of the ambiguous art film genre of the late 60's and early 70's.
It's star, Elizabeth Taylor, appears here in one of her most remote and dangerous roles. She plays Lise a woman who is consumed by insanity and the desire to find the ultimate lover, the be all and end all of boyfriends you might say.
As the film opens you are presented with a shattered view of a woman on the edge of something terrible. The camera moves past bald mannequins in a disjointed way. Is this Lise's view of others or is it a reflection of her ultimate fate? Upon being told to take a holiday from work after causing a scene in the office the film opens with her preparations to take flight to Rome. The film jump cuts from past to present as the police in Rome try to reconstruct her final fatal holiday in terrorist gripped Rome. Even Rome comes off as off kilter. This is not the Rome of Audrey Hepburn or Marcello Mastroianni but a city one hardly recognizes from the lack of typical filming locations one associates with "Made In Rome!" movies.
Director Giuseppe Patroni Griffi succeeds in presenting a uniquely Italian cinema verite film of the Edna O'Brien novel. This is a unique film and very much of it's day. Its non-linear, experimental, almost documentary style will be hard to get into for any one not used to movies of this sort. But it is well worth the effort. So strange and challenging a film it is that it left the opening night audience at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival in stunned silence.
The cast is well chosen and gives some oddly memorable performances. Ian Bannan as the macrobiotic sex-nut who tires to pick up Lise on the plane to Rome seems almost as mad as she is. It is a wickedly off kilter wild-eyed performance. The charming and always wonderful Mona Washbourne is sweetly touching as the woman who befriends the mad Lise and in doing so leads her to meet the man of her dreams.
But the glue that holds it all together is provided by Miss Taylor who tops off her short list of insane characters from Susanna Drake to Catherine Holly with this daring and shocking portrait of Lise. She opens up as an actress that at the time would have been unthinkable to most of her contemporaries from the old M.G.M. days. That's one of the wonderful things about her film career. She came from an era in old Hollywood where she was trained and groomed to be glossy and perfect. But as times changed so did she and in doing so became much more than an MGM glamour girl, she became an actress with guts. In "The Driver's Seat" she shows her chops as an actress and her willingness to accept challenges in her roles and in Lise she found a great one. One stunning image of her is when in her loud madwoman dress and raccoon painted eyes she challenges the airport security to frisk her. In that scene she seems totally there, totally gone, and totally in control as an actress.

Rating:
Summary: Rare role for Taylor
Review: Have just seen this movie on DVD,in it's complete version(it was released on VHS several years ago in a cut version).Fascinating but disturbing,it lures you into the strange world of a woman(TAYLOR),who is obviously insane and her sick obsession with finding the right man to kill her.Taylor,who was having problems of her own at the time,is masterfully in control of the most complex character she had ever played.In a finely nuanced performance,she shows that in the right situation,and with the right kind of role,she can deliver the goods.Vastly underrated at it's time of release(it was considered too disturbing for the general viewer),hardly released,and then lost for many years,it is now being rediscovered and rightly assessed as one of Taylor's really great performances.With it's piano soundtrack,it's use of white light to show us the divide between the reality of the world and Lise's insanity,and the strange event's that surround her 'trip',we watch as the film moves towards it's powerful,disturbing,inevitable closure.For people who appreciate a rare chance to watch a Hollywood great at her best,and a movie that draws you into a nightmare of the mind.