Product: Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
Rating: 3.0
Very Good Indeed Until.....
The "Bunny" is Carol Lynley's daughter. The little girl was dropped off at her new London school one morning. When mom arrives to pick her up, she has vanished without a trace! A frantic Lynley receives no help form the stodgy school staff. Are they merely inept, truly uncaring or protecting their jobs? Something serious has obviously happened! Laurence Olivier is perfect as the polite, calm and suitably skeptical police inspector. LO maintains that mien though the film. Keir Dullea is over the top, at least early on, as Lynley's protective brother, demanding investigative action. The "exact nature" of the Dullea/Lynley relationship is never explained. The key difference is that she maintains credibility throughout while he decidedly does not. This reviewer was reminded of 2 similar cinematic situations: 1) "The Third Man" where Joseph Cotton searches postwar Vienna for his friend Harry Lime/Orson Welles while dealing with a skeptical British officer played by Trevor Howard. 2) The lesser known and highly recommended "Dangerous Crossing" where Jeanne Crain hunts about an ocean liner for hubby Carl Betz, receiving similar skepticism from the ship's crew. The problem from this viewer's perspective is that "Bunny Lake" virtually derails late in the film. Some of the final scenes are almost surreal; greatly muddling what had been a serious, solid investigative movie. Does Bunny turn up? A good review won't divulge resolutions! This reviewer thought the ultimate "resolution" was made anticlimactic by the film's late twist. Others reviewers will disagree. Nearly all should agree that BLM showcases a campy mid-60s London when the "British Invasion" was at full throttle.