Classic Movie Review: Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)

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.

Classic Movie Review: Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Anatomy of a Murder (1959) 

Directed by: Otto Preminger.

Written by: Wendell Mayes based on the novel by Robert Traver.

Starring: James Stewart (Paul Biegler), Lee Remick (Laura Manion), Ben Gazzara (Lt. Frederick Manion), Arthur O'Connell (Parnell Emmett McCarthy), Eve Arden (Maida Rutledge), Kathryn Grant (Mary Pilant), George C. Scott (Claude Dancer), Orson Bean (Dr. Matthew Smith), Russ Brown (George Lemon), Murray Hamilton (Alphonse Paquette), Brooks West (Dist. Atty. Mitch Lodwick), Ken Lynch (Det. Sgt. James Durgo), John Qualen (Deputy Sheriff Sulo), Howard McNear (Dr. Dompierre), Alexander Campbell (Dr. W. Gregory Harcourt), Ned Wever (Dr. Raschid), Jimmy Conlin (Clarence Madigan), Royal Beal (Sheriff Battisfore), Joseph Kearns (Lloyd Burke), Don Ross (Duane 'Duke' Miller), Joseph N. Welch (Judge Weaver). 

 

Jimmy Stewart was the Tom Hanks of his day – an actor who spent much of his career being wholesome, and All-American – an everyman. You were always immediately on Stewart’s side when a movie started. Unlike Hanks though, Stewart was more willing to poke at that image a little – used it in service of directors who wanted him to take on darker roles, that the audience only gradually realizes are darker. Hitchcock used Stewart in films like Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958) – and in the audience, you are on his side, even though you gradually realize you are on the side of a Peeping Tom or a necrophilia. And you’re on his side in Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder as well – where he plays a defense lawyer, defending an Army officer of killing the man his wife said raped and assaulted her. You’re on his side even though Stewart himself makes clear in the first meeting with his client that he is undeniably guilty of murder, and has to plant the idea of insanity in his head in order to have any chance of getting him off. Anatomy of a Murder is one of the greatest of all-courtroom dramas – and its great perhaps lies in the fact that it is not the story of a crusading lawyer on the side of justice and the truth – the type of character you may expect Stewart to play. No, Anatomy of a Murder is about two sides – the prosecution and the defense – who will do whatever it takes to win, truth and justice be damned.

 

Stewart plays Paul Biegler – the former D.A. of the area, who was voted out at the last election, and has entered private practice since – although that basically means he does a lot of fishing. He is contacted by Laura Manion (Lee Remnick) to take on the case of her husband, Frederick (Ben Gazzara). Laura says that one night she went to the local tavern by herself – and accepted a ride home from the owner – who instead of taking her home, took her to a secluded area, raped and beat her – and she only survived because she got away. She went home and Frederick – and an hour later, he walked into the bar and shot the man dead. As Biegler explains to both Manion’s that isn’t good – it isn’t self-defense, as Laura was already safe. He didn’t even storm off in a fit of rage – he waited an hour. To make matters worse, Laura isn’t precisely behaving like a victim. She is a constant flirt – flirting with Paul, and just about every other man around. She doesn’t seem all that upset by what happened – and the doctor who examined her couldn’t say whether she’d been raped or not. Therefore, there are two plausible scenarios – one that she was raped, and Frederick took revenge on the man who hurt his wife, the other being that Laura had a fling with the bartender, and Frederick got made, hit his wife, and killed his lover. Neither is acceptable – unless, of course, Biegler can prove Frederick was temporarily insane when he committed the crime.

 

The film, which runs nearly three hours, takes its time getting to the trial itself. It spends time getting to know the players – Biegler, of course, his aging, alcoholic friend (Arthur O’Connell – who has a kind of redemption arc in the film that I don’t think really fits). It also establishes Laura and Frederick – and the town itself. When the trial does get going, it adds in another great character – hotshot prosecutor Claude Dancer (George C. Scott) – who never loses, probably at least in part because he doesn’t always play by the rules. Like Biegler, he tries to stretch what he is allowed to do in order to win.

 

The performances in the film are all top-notch. It is anchored by Stewart of course – giving one of his great performances, doing a version of the cornpone “I’m just a small town lawyer” routine – but in a way that lets you know that he knows he is using it cynically. And yet, basically, Paul is a good guy – and he is basically just doing his job. Most of the rest of the key characters – aside from O’Connell – are played by newcomers. Remnick is terrific as the flirty, sexy Laura – who you struggle to get a real handle on. Gazzara is full of that kind of dangerous charm and hairpin temper ready to explode at any moment. Best of all is a young Scott – all swagger and confidence.

 

The film was directed by Otto Preminger in the same kind of cool style he always had. He doesn’t drill anything into your head here – this remains a courtroom drama of course, but it’s not a preachy one. The film never even answers the central question it raises – whether or not Laura was raped. It doesn’t answer it, because in essence, it doesn’t really matter. It matters when the two sides are arguing it – but it’s just there to try and convince a jury, and both sides are able to raise enough doubt, that you’ll never be able to tell for sure. The film, it seems, is arguing that – that trials are not about truth and justice – but about winning and losing, throwing up enough information and misinformation to either prove your point, or making proving it impossible. It’s really kind of amazing that basically 20 minutes into the film, Preminger and company tell you that Frederick is guilty – and then the film runs from another two-and-a-half hours where they basically ignore that central fact. I think that is why Anatomy of a Murder is so beloved by lawyers themselves because it really is about their profession in a more fundamental way – the truth doesn’t matter; it just matters what you can argue.

Classic Movie Review: Bonjour Tristesse (1958)

Bonjour Tristesse (1958)

Directed by: Otto Preminger.

Written by: Arthur Laurents based on the novel by Francoise Sagan.

Starring: Deborah Kerr (Anna Larson), David Niven (Raymond), Jean Seberg (Cecile), Mylene Demongeot (Elsa), Geoffrey Horne (Philippe), Juliette Greco (Self), Walter Chiari (Pablo), Martita Hunt (Philippe’s Mother).

 

Everything is a game in Otto Preminger’s Bonjour Tristesse (1958), until of course, it isn’t fun anymore. The film is set in two different time periods – a year a part – with the present scenes shot in a glassy black-and-white, where father/daughter duo Raymond and Cecile (David Niven and Jean Seberg) are seen living an opulent lifestyle in Paris, but are lifeless, bored and miserable. The scenes from last summer are shot in glorious technicolor, on the French Rivera, where the two are at play, and having the hedonistic time of their lives. At some point, we know, we’ll discover what happened to make everything turn so dour.

 

Raymond and Cecile are the strangest of father/daughter pairings, in that both are essentially carefree libertines, and aren’t afraid to show each other that. Raymond is a cad, hopping from one casual affair to another – the latest being with Elsa (Mylene Demongeot), a much younger, vivacious woman who he has moved into their house – and if he supposedly in living in the boathouse, no one really questions it. Cecile is about 18, but appears younger – with her pixie cut, and girlie dresses, but she knows precisely what kind of effect she has on men, and how to weaponize it – Raymond knows as well, and doesn’t much care. They’re both having too much fun.

 

It is the arrival of Anna (Deborah Kerr) who changes all of that. She was apparently a friend of Cecile’s mother, and is a serious woman – incapable of being casual. Raymond knows this, but pursues her anyway, and soon the couple is engaged. Raymond believes that soon, he, along with Anna, can slowly drift into his old ways – Cecile knows better. And so, Cecile sets about finding a way to ensure that the marriage doesn’t happen – coming up with one plan after another, a devilish child skipping through the woods not knowing just what the consequences of her actions will be.

 

Preminger was a demanding director, and Jean Seberg was his discovery and protégé, and he was determined to make her a star – first in Saint Joan (1957) and then in this, the following year. The first film was considered an embarrassment, and the reviews for Seberg weren’t great here either – although it did win her some important fans in France – with Francois Truffaut calling her the best actress in Europe, and Jean-Luc Godard going so far as to cast her in Breathless (1960) – and even saying that she is essentially playing the same character in both films. Hers is the key performance in Bonjour Tristesse – and it’s a great one. She plays Cecile as a sociopath – but not an irredeemable one. Like many teenagers, Cecile is incapable of seeing the consequences of her actions until it too late – the games she plays have real consequences, but by the time she realizes it, it is too late. She just wants things to stay the same – and while she gets what she wants, she is miserable – leading to the mesmerizing final shot of the film.

 

Niven is terrific here as well. He is playing off his image as a cad here, but strangely, he is able to go deeper here, by showing us how blithely shallow Raymond is. He sees what is happening, not completely, but enough, but simply doesn’t care. This was the same year he would win an Oscar for Separate Tables, playing a gay character, who is given a bizarre sexual backstory because of course, you couldn’t say he was gay in 1958 – although that is precisely how Niven played him anyway. It shows some range that he gave the two performances in the same year, Deborah Kerr is fine as Anna – but like Niven, she is playing off her own image of being prim and proper, but unlike Niven, isn’t given the opportunity to really undermine that image at all.

 

Bonjour Tristesse also looks terrific – as was standard from a Preminger film. The cinematography by George Perinal is terrific – both in the sun drenched technicolor of the French Rivera, and the cold, glassy black and white of Paris. The film wasn’t seen as a success when it was released in 1958 – but is now becoming seen as the masterwork it is – and a key film in the career of the wonderful, tragic Seberg.