Bunny
Lake is Missing (1965)
Directed
by: Otto
Preminger.
Written
by: John
Mortimer and Penelope Mortimer based on the novel by Maryam Modell.
Starring:
Keir
Dullea (Steven Lake), Carol Lynley (Ann Lake), Laurence Olivier (Superintendent
Newhouse), Martita Hunt (Ada Ford), Anna Massey (Elvira Smollett), Clive Revill
(Police Sgt. Andrews), Finlay Currie (Doll Maker), Lucie Mannheim (Cook), The
Zombies (The Zombies), Noel Coward (Horatio Wilson), Adrienne Corri (Dorothy).
They
key reason why Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing works so well is that it
takes almost the entire runtime before we discover if Carol Lynley’s Ann Lake
really did have a daughter named Bunny, or didn’t. We’ve seen a lot of movies
in which everyone in a film thinks that the main character – normally a woman –
is crazy, imagining things that are not there, but filmmakers seem to think
that as audience members, we need to know that they aren’t crazy. They do this
so we will feel sympathy for the characters – although often all it does is sap
the movie of tension. In Bunny Lake is Missing, it is entirely plausible that
there never was a Bunny Lake at all – until Preminger decides to reveal it for
sure.
The
setup for the movie is simple. Ann has just moved to England from America, to
move in with her journalist brother, Steven (Keir Dullea). She is an unwed
mother to a four-year-girl, Bunny, and she is dropping her off at her school
for the first time. But she’s running late, the kids are already in their
classes, so she leaves Bunny in the first day room, and talks to the German
cook – who assures Ann she will watch little Bunny until the teacher come down
in 10 minutes for morning break. When Ann arrives that afternoon to pick Bunny
up, she isn’t there. The teachers say they’ve never seen her. The cook is
nowhere to be found. There’s a strange lady in the attic, who studies the imaginations
of children, and says having imaginary friends is normal. Steven arrives to
help look, as does Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier). But Newhouse
cannot find any evidence that Bunny ever existed. There are none of her
belongings at the new apartment, no witnesses who can vouch for her, other than
Ann and Steven. And what kind of woman has a child out of wedlock to begin
with?
Bunny
Lake is Missing walks a very fine line for much of its runtime between a kind
of surreal horror movie, and a very black comedy. No one in the movie seems
normal – aside from Olivier’s Newhouse - it is an oddly restrained performance
by Olivier, no stranger to hamming it up when the situation calls for it. Here,
Olivier seems to know that everyone else is going to go off the rails, so he
better remains calm. It’s the right call, as everyone else in the film is
really strange. Lynley does a terrific job of playing it down the middle – so
you can never tell if she’s crazy, or just grief stricken. There is an eerie calm
of Dulea for most of the movie that doesn’t sit right. The strange lady in the
attic is, well strange, and she has nothing on the doll maker who refers to the
dolls he fixes as his patients. And they all pale in comparison to the playwright
Noel Coward, who plays the incredibly creepy landlord, speaking of his dulcet
voice that has earned him legions of fans on the BBC.
The
terrific black and white cinematography by Denys N. Coop is effective creepy
throughout – making terrific use of shadow. The odd presence of the rock bands
the Zombies – seen on TV – just adds to the surreal tone of the movie, where
nothing quite sits right. The climax of the movie is an extended riff on
madness – like the finale of Psycho, but stretched to an extreme. In
retrospect, you wonder if the ending makes sense – if the character who is that
mad could really hide it as well as they do for the rest of the movie, and
there are a few moments here and there that perhaps telegraph the ending a
little too much.
But
these are nitpicks to a terrific, surreal masterwork by Preminger. He would
soon go off the deep end with films like Skidoo, and never regain his form. But
in Bunny Lake is Missing, he is at the top of his game, and he delivers one of
his strangest – and best – films.
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