I'd been looking for this film for years and finally found a poor quality but watchable dub. I only saw it once when it was first released in 1970. It stars Samantha Eggar and Oliver Reed who teamed up again many years later in David Cronenberg's "The Brood." I remember "Lady in the Car" as being very hip, with nicely atmospheric European locations, and a story that was very compelling until the denouement. It's got a great premise. Samantha Eggar plays a woman who drops her boss and wife off at the airport in their car and she is supposed to drive the car back to Paris. Instead, she heads towards the southern French coast - curiously finding that where ever she goes people remember her from earlier in the day, even accusing her of having left things behind and creating a ruckus. It's like she was retracing tracks she never made even though she doesn't really know where she is going! Whoa! It gets weirder and weirder, even surprising and intense.
MAJOR SPOILER NEXT PARAGRAPH:
Unfortunately, the final fourth of the film is a let down when we find out the truth is nothing more than a silly murder plot. And to make the murder plot make sense, the script gets very contrived. And I dislike a mystery where someone has to explain what really happened. In this case, it's done with flashbacks, but I'm sure they were only used because the explanation was so convoluted, it needed pictures to clarify. Even then, it's confusing.
END SPOILER
There is a character Eggar meets along the way that is just so absurd in terms of coincidence and the relationship that unfolds, that believability just catapults out the window. With that character either changed or eliminated and the ending revised, I think this film would work very well as a non-Hitchcock Hitchcock film. It really made me want to be in France in 1970. Eggar is quite good as the confused woman. She was very appealing back then. This movie is hard to see, so beware of inaccurate descriptions. Leonard Maltin's book says "Lady in the Car" is about someone trying to drive Eggar insane, which is completely incorrect. This is not a classic by any means, but something about a big chunk of it is very intriguing. It is based on a very popular French thriller with the same title. In spite of its problems, I have to say it was really great to see it again. I'd recommend it for Eggar fans, the developing mystery, and for some wonderful south of France locations.
MAJOR SPOILER NEXT PARAGRAPH:
Unfortunately, the final fourth of the film is a let down when we find out the truth is nothing more than a silly murder plot. And to make the murder plot make sense, the script gets very contrived. And I dislike a mystery where someone has to explain what really happened. In this case, it's done with flashbacks, but I'm sure they were only used because the explanation was so convoluted, it needed pictures to clarify. Even then, it's confusing.
END SPOILER
There is a character Eggar meets along the way that is just so absurd in terms of coincidence and the relationship that unfolds, that believability just catapults out the window. With that character either changed or eliminated and the ending revised, I think this film would work very well as a non-Hitchcock Hitchcock film. It really made me want to be in France in 1970. Eggar is quite good as the confused woman. She was very appealing back then. This movie is hard to see, so beware of inaccurate descriptions. Leonard Maltin's book says "Lady in the Car" is about someone trying to drive Eggar insane, which is completely incorrect. This is not a classic by any means, but something about a big chunk of it is very intriguing. It is based on a very popular French thriller with the same title. In spite of its problems, I have to say it was really great to see it again. I'd recommend it for Eggar fans, the developing mystery, and for some wonderful south of France locations.