Bunny O'Hare (1971)

A Masterpiece!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Okay...You see this description on the on-screen guide, "An elderly woman (Bette Davis) and a plumbing scavenger (Ernest Borgnine) pose as motorcycle hippies to rob the bank that evicted her"...How could you NOT set the DVR to 'record'?!Did Bette Davis need the money or was she just having fun with this? Bank-robber is an unusual role for an older actress. It would actually be cool if there were more roles like this for women-of-a-certain-age today. Borgnine is on-site when Davis's house is razed and offers her a ride somewhere. He tries to ditch her a couple of times but she learns of his past as a bank-robber and uses it to blackmail him into letting her stay in his camper, schooling her in Bank-robbery 101, and driving the get-away bike. He steps in to help with the first robbery when her nerves fail her. As the robberies continue, he becomes her accomplice and friend. There's the slightest hint of the potential for romance between them but it isn't really explored.Jack Cassidy, dimples dimpling, plays the anti-hippie detective in pursuit of the duo. He seems to be enjoying himself, tossing off lines like, "...all they want to do is sit around and smoke pot, play ukuleles and let the rest of the world take care of them...I tell you, they're a threat to the very moral fiber of this country!" Joan Delaney (aka the girlfriend of the President's Analyst) is Cassidy's very young, ex-hippie assistant. John Astin plays Davis's son and is also credited as "creative consultant." What did he consult on, bank robberies? Loan sharks? The latest styles in bathrobes? Reva Rose is Davis's daughter (with a NY accent) and Herb Marlis is her near-catatonic son-in-law. There's even a "special guest appearance by Governor David Cargo", in case you're a fan of cameos by local politicians. It's an amusing and sometimes poignant film. No, it's not Oscar-worthy but come on! Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, think you'd see Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine riding tandem on a motorcycle?! Dressed as hippies?!! Oh, no, you didn't!

Bette Davis is a doting mother who, at the outset of this film, is evicted from her house because she has defaulted on her payments. The reason she is in such dire financial straits is because she is incapable of seeing what a pair of seedy, money-grubbing low-lifes her son and daughter are. After hitching a ride from Ernie Borgnine (who has sort of repossessed her toilet pan!) she blackmails him into helping her rob the bank that has thrown her out of her home.This mess of a movie features one movie legend at a career low and one b-list star who, to me, seemed to get by on enthusiasm and likability rather than acting skill. We can only wonder what dire straits Davis herself must have been in to accept a starring role in a movie with so few redeemable aspects. The plot is almost non-existent, and a ham-fisted script gives Davis and Borgnine no opportunity to develop any kind of chemistry. But then whoever wrote this rubbish thought it would be a blast to have Davis and Borgnine dressed as hippies. A sub-plot featuring the inept detective on their case is mind-blowingly stupid.

I recently had the immense pleasure of meeting Ernest Borgnine at New Jersey's Chiller Con, and he looked and sounded great at 91 years young. This inspired my friend and I to watch some Borgnine films, and he suggested this rather obscure yet terrible piece of garbage (though he meant well, and I certainly didn't mind giving it a shot). It's an unfunny "comedy" where Bette Davis shacks up in a trailer with former crook Borgnine and they decide to dress up as hippies in order to rob banks. And I don't mean just once, but several times, in the same idiotic costumes. And these banks never seem to grow wise. It's boring and uneven, and the ever-vain Jack Cassidy is a pain as a stuffy lieutenant trying to crack the case. I don't claim to have seen all of Bette Davis' greatest films at this point, but I've seen enough of her finest work to be comfortable in declaring that BUNNY O'HARE has got to be in the running as her worst film. * out of ****

That, of course, is a reference to the first of two films which they did, where Bette spoke with an accent that Meryl Streep would never envy. This second film together, made 15 years after the more well remembered drama, is an obscure action comedy which didn't get enough attention to even rank a nice ad in the New York Times. (Investigating this film, I was stunned to find an ad the size of my thumb nail in microfilmed copies at my local library). Based upon the fact that the two of them were both Oscar Winners and that co-star Jack Cassidy was a popular Broadway performer, this obviously was way even below "B" grade to warrant such lack of publicity. Reviews, of course, were no better. Bette is seen as the opening credits closed pleading with the bank not to foreclose on her home. Of course, she can't get a word in edgewise when she contacts her daughter (Reva Rose, who had just come off of playing Lucy in Off-Broadway's "Your a Good Man Charlie Brown") since the phone man disconnects her. When she calls back a second time, the cat is eating her son-in- law's breakfast with the guy sitting right there paying no attention, and the daughter has to rush off. Then, as she is finally getting around to telling her daughter what is going on, a tractor plows the house down. Ernest Borgnine, as the plummer taking out the toilet, offers her a ride to wherever she needs to go, and before he knows it, she has basically become his guest. He tries to get rid of her, but every time he makes an attempt, she some how manages to get back in his trailer. Thanks to a bumpy ride in the back of the trailer, she learns of his past as a bank robber wanted for escaping from prison, and subtly blackmails him into training her on the art of robbing banks. In a rather funny sequence, we see Bette going through all sorts of indignities (running in unglamorous sweats; climbing on monkey bars; and not at all looking like the actress who played all those feisty Warner Brothers heroines in the 30's and 40's.) Even Margo Channing would have never allowed herself to be profiled this way! Noticing a group of hippies protesting the Bank of New Mexico, Davis and Borgnine use their looks to disguise themselves. Nobody seems to notice the lines around Davis's mouth which make it appear she is older, so the local police are on the look-out for young hippies. A funny note about Reva Rose's looks as Bette's daughter; She was a strange choice considering that Ms. Rose is obviously Jewish, and Ms. Davis was obviously not. It's one of those howlingly funny details not considered that make "Bunny O'Hare" comically bad. While John Astin as her son is much more believable (Gomez Addams as Bette's son---how appropriate!), his one-dimensional portrayal seems taken from Dick Shawn's portrayal of Ethel Merman's stupid son in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". A string of scantily clad women are on and off as the latest woman in his life, making Astin a cad the writers obviously used to make the point of how children use and depend on their parents too much, no matter what they are going through themselves. Then, there is Jack Cassidy's oh-so-stupid police commissioner. His opening scene giving a speech to his underlings is oh-so-badly written; Cassidy obviously was by this time becoming a caricatured of his off- screen persona, much like John Barrymore many years before. And when he openly sexually harasses the seemingly willing Joan Delaney (as the younger new female cop assigned to help him capture Davis and Borgnine), he just takes the character into dimensions that would have today's film audiences up in arms. Delaney is supposed to be smarter than Cassidy, but her willingness to be used in this way is destructive to her character. And the finale where all four come together is made unbelievable by what occurs. The cops are presented as buffoons, and Davis, using the money she steals to help her worthless children, isn't too bright, either. The very last scene does have a payoff in that aspect, one of the only good developments which happens towards the end. In the early 1970's, veteran stars (Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Kate Hepburn, Olivia DeHavilland, Joan Bennett, and Bette) were all working; Hepburn and Stanwyck pretty much remained unscathed, while Bennett's "Dark Shadows" was still a hit no matter what the critics thought. DeHavilland sensibly took on smaller parts, but Crawford and Davis simply took any leading script they could get their hands on. If there were awards for "Most embarrassing role for a veteran star", Joan Crawford would have won for 1970's "Trog", and Bette would have won for 1971's "Bunny O'Hare". Watch for a chance to laugh at the buffoonery which takes 91 minutes to unravel. It's evidence that the old system of Hollywood wasn't too bad, and what was to follow this era of film trash could only get better.