Bunny Lake Is Missing
history,
Bunny Lake Is Missing is a 1965 psychological thriller directed and produced by Otto Preminger, who filmed it in black and white widescreen format in London. It was based on the novel of the same name by Merriam Modell. The score is by Paul Glass and the opening theme is often heard as a refrain. The Zombies also appear in a television broadcast.
Dismissed by both critics and Preminger as insignificant upon its release in 1965, the film later earned a following as a cult classic, along with strong reviews by critics such as Andrew Sarris. The movie was at last released on DVD in 2005.
Plot
American single mother Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) says that she has lately come to England from the US with her four-year-old daughter Felicia, whom she calls by the nickname Bunny (and whom viewers do not see). Ann plans to settle in London with her journalist brother Steven (Keir Dullea). After the first morning at Bunny's new school (The Little People's Garden), Ann comes to fetch her but Bunny is not there and nobody can remember even having seen her.
Police Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) faces an array of suspects in Bunny's disappearance. Among these is Ann's landlord, aging writer and broadcaster Horatio Wilson (Noel Coward), who lets himself into the Lakes' new apartment as he pleases and is a whip-loving sado-masochist. Retired teacher Ada Ford (Martita Hunt) lives on the school's top floor and collects recordings of childrens' nightmares. Ada in turn tells Newhouse she thinks there is something "very unusual" about Ann's brother Steven. Meanwhile, Steven acts aggressively towards Newhouse, threatening to create a public scandal through his resources as a reporter unless the police quickly find Bunny.
The family then tell the police that all of the girl's belongings have vanished that same day in a mysterious burglary, along with her passport. The school authorities in turn report that they had never received a tuition check for a Bunny Lake. When Steven lets slip that Ann as a young girl had an imaginary friend whom she also called Bunny, Newhouse begins to wonder whether Bunny Lake ever really existed.
At her wits' end from not being believed, Ann suddenly recalls that, before Bunny's disappearance, the girl's doll had been taken in for repair. She sets off across nighttime London to try to get the doll back, thinking that with it in hand the police will have to believe her.
In the film's surprise denouement, after Ann reaches the "doll hospital" and finds the doll, she is joined by Steven. He destroys the doll and strikes Ann. Steven checks Ann into a hospital but she manages to escape and tracks him down. Ann finds Steven taking Bunny from the boot of his car where he has evidently kept her all day. He is clearly about to murder the child. Calling him Stevie, Ann tries to distract her brother with reassurances and ever more frantic games from their childhood. Their dialogue hints at the film's earlier suggestions of incestuous feelings between them.Orr, John, »Otto Preminger and the End of Classical Cinema, sensesofcinema.com, 2006, retrieved 24 July 2008Thompson, Natahniel, »Bunny Lake is Missing on DVD, tcm.com, retrieved 24 July 2008 Steven deeply resents Bunny's father, Ann's former boyfriend, and Bunny's existence reminds him of having "lost" his sister in this way. At last, Newhouse and other policemen arrive. Steven is taken into custody and watches as Ann carries Bunny safely away.
Cast
{| class="wikitable"
|- bgcolor="CCCCCC"
! Actor !! Role
|-
| Laurence Olivier || Supt. Newhouse
|-
| Carol Lynley || Ann Lake
|-
| Keir Dullea || Stephen Lake
|-
| Martita Hunt || Ada Ford
|-
| Anna Massey || Elvira Smollett
|-
| Clive Revill || Sergeant Andrews
|-
| Lucie Mannheim || The Cook
|-
| Finlay Currie || The Doll Maker
|-
| Noel Coward || Horatio Wilson
|-
| Suky Appleby || Bunny Lake
|}
Production details
Adapting the original novel, Preminger re-set the story from New York to London, where he liked working. His dark, sinister vision of London made use of many real locations, including the "doll hospital" and a house that belonged to novelist Daphne du Maurier. Preminger had found the novel's denouement lacking in credibility so he changed the identity of the would-be murderer, which needed many re-writes from his British husband-and-wife scriptwriters John Mortimer and Penelope Mortimer before the famously demanding director was satisfied.Foster Hirsch, "Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King" (2007).
- Maria DiBattista (Princeton University): "Afterword". In: Evelyn Piper: Bunny Lake Is Missing (Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp) (The Feminist Press at The City University of New York: New York, 2004) 198-219 (ISBN 1-55861-474-5) (includes a discussion of the differences between Piper's novel and Preminger's film version).