Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)

I love this movie so much

Such a frustrating disappointment

Redundant and unnecessary.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Ann Lake and her brother Steven are moving into a new house, with Ann and her daughter Bunny having just moved to England from the US. The day of the move is quite hectic, as Ann also has to drop Bunny off for her first day of school. When Ann comes to collect Bunny, she is nowhere to be found. The Police are called in, but they more they investigate, the more it appears that Bunny Lake never existed.Intriguing, original drama, directed by Otto Preminger (director of Anatomy of a Murder, Laura and Exodus, among others). Great set-up with good build-up. Preminger does a great job at making you think in a certain direction, even though that direction is the lesser-trodden one. However, not brilliant. The middle section, while creating intrigue, lacks momentum. The ending feels quite clumsy, even though it does involve a great twist. There are also some jarring moments along the way, scenes where you think "This isn't necessary". The extensive Zombies coverage is the best example of this. I can only think that Preminger was trying to appeal to a younger audience.Laurence Olivier puts in a solid performance as Superintendent Newhouse (though one would expect that from him), giving the movie gravitas and credibility. Carol Lynley is okay as Ann Lake but I thought Keir Dullea, as Steven Lake, overacted a touch.Not a classic, but worth watching.

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING is a psychological thriller film as a puzzling mystery about a little girl who disappears without a trace in her first day in a nursery school. It was based on the novel of the same name by Merriam Modell. The idea about a child who is born out of wedlock, and too close relationship between brother and sister is intriguing enough without mysterious background. Ann is a single mother who recently moved to London from New York. She wishes to drop off her daughter Bunny for the girl's first day at a new nursery school. However, Ann cannot locate any teachers or administrators, only the school's disgruntled cook. She is forced to leave Bunny unsupervised in the building's "first day" room, under the reassurance that the cook will be responsible for the child. When Ann returns in the afternoon, the cook has quit and Bunny Lake is missing. An administrator recalls meeting with Ann but claims never to have seen the missing child. Ann and her brother Steven, in desperation, call the police. However, some of the evidence pointing to the fact that the little girl actually never existed...A striking pair of possibly incestuous siblings comes in an eccentric environment. It is difficult to draw a line between a perversion and objectivity in the case of a missing child. It's about secrets from childhood, or some sort of guilt? The story and direction are somewhat illogical and unclear. The plots blend from bizarre, expressionist to surreal moments. In the background of all this is a tantalizing mystery of a motherhood, kindness, disbelief, skepticism and madness. The characterization could have been better.Carol Lynley as Ann Lake is scared and distraught mother, who has to quickly connect strings in her life. Keir Dullea as Steven Lake is her distressed brother who has managed to draw a thin line between madness and kindness. Their bizarre game at the end of the film is a sort of culmination of their trepidation.Laurence Olivier as Superintendent Newhouse has stole the show as a somewhat cynical, but very detailed inspector.

Based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Merriam Model, this is a rather good psychological thriller which unfortunately loses much of its credibility towards the end. The plot concerns the disappearance of a four-year-old girl named Bunny Lake from the playschool Little People's Garden several days after she and her mother Ann moved from New York to London. As the investigation develops, it become clear that Bunny may never have existed at all. In this respect, the film is somewhat reminiscent of the earlier films "The Lady Vanishes" or "So Long at the Fair" but it is sadly not on the same level as either. The script by John and Penelope Mortimer is good for the most part. However, the last 10 to 15 minutes of the film are borderline hysterical and contain developments that happen not because they are logical but because it says so in the script, which is never a good thing. Otto Preminger's direction is good and he is able to maintain a decent level of tension for most of the film but it is never really as high as it should be. The film stars Laurence Olivier in an excellent performance as Superintendent Newhouse, who leads the investigation into Bunny's disappearance. Olivier plays the atypically down-to-earth role in a more understated fashion than is his wont. Newhouse is a silky smooth, fiercely intelligent and deeply methodical man who is more concerned with cold hard facts than gut instincts and intuition. As such, he comes to believe that Bunny may be a figment of her mother's imagination as he and his men are unable to locate any evidence that suggests that she existed. That would be a perfectly sensible conclusion under the circumstances but all that glisters is not gold. Carol Lynley is quite good as the understandably incredibly distraught Ann, though she is much more convincing when she has to cry than when she has to converse normally. I thought that that was a little odd since I generally find it to be the opposite when comes to second- rate actors. Lynley does fall into that category, I'm afraid, but she is certainly able to hold her own with Olivier in several scenes, particularly the one in the pub. Keir Dullea is perfectly fine as Ann's very loving and supportive elder brother Stephen but his performance does not really standout as much as I would have liked. I'd have preferred if a better actor had been cast instead, to be perfectly honest. Maybe someone like Donald Sutherland, who worked extensively in the UK in the mid 1960s. Noël Coward has less than ten minutes screen time but he nevertheless gives a wonderful performance as the Lakes' landlord Horatio Wilson, a self-described "poet, playwright and dropper of alcoholic bricks" who regularly reads poetry on the BBC. He is a lecherous old drunk who is into bondage, owns the Marquis de Sade's (alleged) skull and delights at the very thought of a policeman whipping him. I'm glad that he's not my landlord. Before his...hobbies were revealed, one policeman referred to him as a "degenerate" and I was more than a little worried that Wilson was going to be an example of the then common homophobic stereotype that all gay men were paedophiles. Thankfully, however, I was wrong on that score. Incidentally, Coward was not terribly convinced by Dullea's acting ability and he is rumoured to have quipped, "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow." The film also features good performances from Martita Hunt as an extremely eccentric former teacher Miss Ford (whom I would have loved to have seen in a scene with Wilson), Clive Revill as Sgt. Andrews, Anna Massey as the playschool's administrator Miss Elvira Smollet and Lucie Mannheim as its obstreperous German cook. In his final film before his death in 1968, Finlay Currie is a one scene wonder as the kindly old doll maker.Overall, this is a pretty effective thriller for much of its running time but it eventually falls in on itself like a house of cards.

"Bunny Lake is missing" is a first rate psychological thriller which keeps its viewers guessing until the very end about the real motives of a crime and the person behind a horrible crime.As the knots are untied only till the very end,Otto Preminger has been able to direct a taut thriller which is able to reveal itself as a rewarding experience only for those viewers who watch this film as a mental exercise of catching innocent looking criminals whose identities betray their real motives. An effect of suspense is created by constantly asking questions about reality.What is real ? Who is real ? What is an illusion ? Why does X appear as an illusion ? Although the film is spread over a long,tiring day Otto Preminger still manages to show different people at work.His viewers get to see methods of policemen who are dealing with ordinary people.There are also casual scenes from a children's school where parents leave their children thinking that their wards would be safe.One of the film's major highlight is the manner in which Otto Preminger has nicely handled taboo subjects such as incest and the plight of the unwed mother.Lastly Otto Preminger-a cinéaste who needs no introduction at all to all those cinéphiles who are aware of great films made in the past.For those who are watching this film for the first time,it would be nice if they make efforts to watch his other films.