Bunny Lake Is Missing

Plot synopsis:
Young ANN LAKE has just moved to England from America with her successful but controlling brother STEPHEN. The two are extremely close, with Stephen doting upon Ann. In a hurry the day she enrolls her child, BUNNY, in a private school, Ann leaves her with the school's female German COOK, then runs off to do errands.That late afternoon, Ann returns to the school to pick up Bunny. To her increasing dismay, however, no one at the school seems to know where Bunny is or even who she is. Ann interrogates one of the school's staff, ELIVRA, who hasn't a clue. When the arrogant Stephen arrives, he badgers Elvira further.Soon, SUPT. NEWHOUSE, an unflappable British police officer, arrives, looking into the matter. He talks with all parties involved, including ADA FORD, one of the school's elderly founders. The eccentric Ada resides in an upstairs room, where she's currently compiling a tome about childhood nightmares.Newhouse continues his investigation, tolerating the threats and barbs from Ann's increasingly accusatory brother, Stephen. But as Newhouse puts together Ann's profile, he begins to doubt her story in subtle ways. After all, since no one saw the child (the Cook has quit and has disappeared) he has to wonder if Ann even has a child. Is she delusional, perhaps?The insinuation infuriates Stephen, but he seems to back it up with references to Ann having had an imaginary playmate named Bunny as a child. Ann must now try to find clues that her child really existed. She must also fend off her creepy new landlord, WILSON, an aging homosexual actor who's always drunk and carting about his little dog. The POLICE interrogate him, as well. When Stephen comes across Newhouse talking to Ann in a pub, he blows up at the officer, threatening and accusing him.As police attempt to locate the Cook, Ann's nightmare intensifies. Desperate for evidence that will prove the existence of her child, she suddenly remembers the claim check for a store that's repairing Bunny's doll. In spite of the late hour, Ann goes off in a cab after telling Stephen where she's going. In the meantime, Newhouse and his MEN look into the travel records that brought Ann and Stephen to England.Ann finds the doll shop, which, although closed, has an unlocked door. She gets the doll from the PROPRIETOR. Stephen has followed her, however, and once Ann presents him with the doll and goes off to deal with the Proprietor, Stephen gets a crazed look in his eye and sets the doll afire. Ann is horrified.Ann follows Stephen to a remote location where he has Bunny hidden. Stephen is the kidnapper! Indeed, Stephen is so close to his sister Ann he found Bunny an intrusion in their relationship. Stephen has now lapsed into another identity - a more murderous one and likely an extension of their imaginary selves as children. He's now intent upon killing the child, so as to have sole access to his sister again.Ann tricks Bunny away from the demented Stephen by engaging him in a series of childlike games. Stephen chases Ann and Bunny, but Newhouse and Police soon arrive, arresting the demented young brother. They finally found the evidence they needed of the child's existence by way of travel records.

Tags: suspenseful, psychological

Review:
Preminger made a number of better films  "Laura" and "Anatomy of a Murder" come to mind  but I have a special fondness for "Bunny Lake" even though at times it drags and is overly talky.Among the merits of casting Carol Lynley and Keir Dullea, it can be successfully argued that they look like siblings  often not the case in films  which works very well for this film, as does their ethereal out-of-body quality.
Criticism has been made that the role of Ann Lake was written one dimensionally and therefore offered Lynley little to do but weep and whine; but this may have been Preminger's intention to support that part of the plot that suggests Ann may not have a daughter and that Ann herself may be more than a bit unbalanced.Dullea is an unusual looking actor who can photograph good looking or simply strange.
I especially liked the doll hospital cellar sequence with Lynley holding an oil lamp as she moves about, the high angle shot of the backyard the begins the final sequence, and several sequences when characters pass quickly from one room to another.The sexual subtext is not as hidden as it would have been in the 50s, but subtler, say, than after 1970; its ambiguity adds to the film's texture without getting in the way.
As the film began with the Saul Bass titles and Paul Glass's score, I felt a pleasurable sensation of awe which I used to feel more often when seeing a movie, and which reoccurred a number of times in "Bunny Lake".Try to see this film on a large theater screen to experience the full power of the black-and-white widescreen cinematography.
(The last 20 minutes of the film, maligned elsewhere in these IMDB comments, would probably have benefited greatly from a little more of his presence.)His every moment onscreen is fascinating and worthwhile, and the script gives him some fine moments of verbal eccentricity which he delivers with variety and brilliance -- we leave this film wanting to know even more about his character, because he just seems so interesting beneath the surface.Also a plus is that occupying nearly every small part in this film is a truly fine British character actor, with the old dotty schoolmistress Miss Ford (Anna Massey, I believe) a standout.
And then of course, there's Noel Coward....who gives a truly perverse performance in what amounts to only three scenes.The combination of black & white photography and widescreen, while not all that uncommon,  would soon be all but extinct by the time this film was made (at least until our more recent era, when it's made a conspicuous comeback), but it makes for a very effective look and feel to the movie, often dark and noirish, with somes an almost documentary-like grittiness, but always very well-composed and a large part of the film's success.
Soon he begins to question whether Bunny Lake does exist or is Ann's imaginary daughter."Bunny Lake Is Missing" is an intriguing and mysterious thriller directed by Otto Preminger.
You just fall in love with beatific Carol Lynley, she is adorable in this and very brave, after all if we are having to watch this nightmare her character is actually living it.Supporting cast boasts kindly detective Sir Larry Olivier, leering neighbor Noel Coward and high-handed brother Keir Dullea.If you enjoy this one, you may also enjoy 'The Shuttered Room' another scary flick from 1960s Britain with Miss Lynley being threatened by dastardly Oliver Reed as an evil country lout.
As Lynley's brother whose feelings for his sister are almost incestuous, Kier Dullea does well walking a tightrope between normal brotherly concern and something darker, but occasionally overdoes his role.Unfortunately, Preminger can't help but indulge his desire to titillate and shock with the character played by Noel Coward.
1960s Brit Pop combo The Zombies also feature in the film.Ann Lake (Lynley) turns up at her daughter's school to collect her after her first day there, but nobody has any recollection of ever having seen the four year old...It was a film that irked Otto Preminger, he was never happy with the finished product, this even after changing the ending from the one in the novel and relocating the story from New York to London.
Sir Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley, Keir Dullea and Noel Coward star in "Bunny Lake is Missing," a 1965 black and white British film directed by Otto Preminger.
A young woman, Ann Lake (Lynley) and her brother Steven (Dullea) report the woman's little girl, nicknamed Bunny, missing when she can't be found at her school on her first day of class.
Newhouse (Olivier) soon finds out that Bunny's things are disappearing from the new apartment where she, her mother and uncle live, and Newhouse begins to wonder if Bunny ever existed at all.This is a dark, atmospheric film that takes the viewer into an adult world where a child's fantasy life is explored and often accepted - the cofounder of the school on its top floor listening to children's dreams on tape as she writes a book about children's fantasies; the man who runs the doll hospital; and Ann herself, who had an imaginary friend as a child called Bunny, named after a character in a book.
Noted director Otto Preminger directs Carol Lynley as Ann Lake and Keir Dullea as her brother Stephen who have recently moved to London from the United States.
Very good cast gives perfect interpretation such as Laurence Olivier as an obstinate cop , Carol Lynley at her best , as an unsettling mother , though Columbia Pictures wanted Otto Preminger to cast Jane Fonda as Ann Lake, who was eager to play the role, but Preminger insisted upon using Carol Lynley ; furthermore , Keir Dullea as the suspect brother .
Enjoyed this film directed by Otto Preminger which features a great actor Laurence Olivier, (Supt.
Carol Lynley, (Ann Lake) and Keir Dullea, (Stephen Lake) are a brother and sister and Ann has a little girl which is illegitimate and they have just arrived in England from the United States and have entered her in a British private school and she cannot be found anywhere.
Brother and sister Keir Dullea and Carol Lynley arrive in Great Britain along with her daughter and even before Lynley and the little girl have moved into their apartment, she takes young Bunny Lake to daycare from whence she vanishes.
Of course that leaves a rather distraught young mother in Lynley who summons Scotland Yard with the cry that Bunny Lake Is Missing.Of course Scotland Yard is more than a little concerned when all the child's toys and any record of her existence is seemingly obliterated.
Still Otto Preminger got some good performances out of a cast who might have thought they had signed for a Hitchcock film.Laurence Olivier recalled that he was not a happy camper on the set of Bunny Lake Is Missing.
Here he does a wonderful job of playing a psychotic brother to poor, long-suffering Carol Lynley, whose daughter, Bunny Lake, is missing by the way.
"Bunny Lake is Missing" is a very good mystery thriller that deals with the desperate search of a young single mother for her 4 year old daughter (Bunny Lake) disappeared when left early at school in her very first day and no one seems having seen her (viewers don't either).
The woman has just arrived in London to live with her brother and it comes the time when even the police doubts that the little girl really exists since all her things have also disappeared from her new home (or so says the mom).Otto Preminger makes a fine job with a black and white photography that helps to create a most adequate sordid and gray atmosphere all along and a simple and intelligent direction that keeps a permanent interest on what is happening.
Always reliable Finlay Currie is also there in a small appearance as a doll maker.In my opinion "Bunny Lake is Missing" is not a classic or perhaps not even a great film (in such range that will depend on each one's particular preferences), but no doubt it stands as a very good and enjoyable product in its genre far deserving more attention and recognition that those it received when it was first shown in theatres in the middle 60's.
But when she and her brother call the police, the investigation appears to focus more on whether the young girl ever existed in the first place, when Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier, wasted in this movie alongside Noel Coward) discovers no one at the school remembers seeing the girl.
Since then I have gone out of my way to see it wherever and whenever possible, chasing it through video stores on both sides of the Atlantic.Although it may sound like a cliche, "Bunny Lake" is truly a film that you should know as little as possible about going into -- if you possibly can, seek it out, petition the Preminger estate and the studio to release it on video or DVD.
Carol Lynley plays Ann Lake, the mother, who does an excellent job especially towards the end of the film.
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.
"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.
Under Preminger's surefooted direction and craftsmanship, the lead actors Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley and Keir Dullea put down stupendous performances.
While Keir Dullea (as Stephen Lake) gets her things in order, sister Carol Lynley (as Ann Lake) arranges for a local school cook to look after her daughter "Bunny Lake", telling the woman she has left the unseen four-year-old in the "First Day room".
Soon, sleuthing Laurence Olivier (as Inspector Newhouse) arrives to investigate the disappearing child; but, unexpectedly, he has trouble finding evidence "Bunny Lake" has ever existed.Director Otto Preminger artfully holds interest, as his psychological thriller gets creepy on you.
******** Bunny Lake Is Missing (10/3/65) Otto Preminger ~ Carol Lynley, Keir Dullea, Laurence Olivier.
Dullea, Lynley's brother calls in Detective Olivier who starts to question whether the child actually exists.Solid enough thriller, but it is by the numbers offering a pretty linear experience with limited mystery and when the outcome is revealed it's not much of a surprise.
Well elements of this plot was used in the Jodie Foster film Flightplan where a girl goes missing on a plane but apart from the mother no one believes she ever existed.Yet Bunny Lake is Missing also borrows from Hitchcock's The Thirty Nine Steps and the German cook in this film also appeared in the Hitchcock classic.This suspense thriller directed by Otto Preminger has a newly arrived American woman (Carol Lynley) whose daughter has gone missing on the first day at nursery.
Apart from her brother (Keir Dullea) no one seems to believe that Bunny Lake existed but the film throws in enough eccentrics or strange people as suspects to keep you guessing such as Noel Coward playing a creepy landlord.Laurence Olivier plays the inspector who has to find Bunny Lake but also needs to ascertain whether she existed.
This might be the first time I recall seeing Olivier playing a policeman in a mystery thriller and he seems to have a bit more cunning to him.The film has a strange final act which takes a left turn.
Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) investigates but soon wonders if she has made the whole thing up.This movie starts off with such a powerful compelling sequence as Ann Lake try to find her daughter at the school.
If "Bunny Lake Is Missing" isn't one of Otto Preminger's masterpieces it is, nevertheless, a terrifically entertaining psychological thriller, beautifully directed, written and acted.
There's Laurence Olivier as a pragmatic policeman, that fine and underrated actress Carol Lynley as the distraught mother, Noel Coward and Martita Hunt as eccentrics and Dullea, surprisingly good, as Lynley's over-possessive brother while there are several very neat cameos from a host of well-known British character actors.
However, there are some very good actors here giving fine performances: Laurence Olivier as Superintendent NewhouseKeir Dullea (also in 2001: A Space Odyssey) as Steven LakeCarol Lynley as Ann Lakeand Noël Coward as Wilson the creepy landlord.
Playing against Carol Lynley and Keir Dullea as the Lake siblings, it is interesting to watch Laurence Olivier, Martita Hunt (in an excellent performance), Noel Coward and Anna Massey, taking good advantage of their roles, which in the end are little more than marionettes used to illustrate the emotional disorder of the central characters.
Wasn't she mentally ill?Helped by her brother and a police who are more and more skeptical,she begins to search.The old schoolteacher is very clear-sighted when she says "This boy does not care for his niece but he does care for his sister".Laurence Olivier was praised for his part (the actor said that he was not interested in it)but actually the movie belongs to Keir Dullea.
He appears as a well -respected good -looking polite young man,with future prospects ,in his grey flannel suit.His relationship with his sister (Carol Lynley) is mysterious.They shared lots of things during their childhood.He insists she had an imaginary companion they killed and buried (first step).Then she got pregnant by one of her high school 's boyfriend and he wanted her to have an abortion (second step).The two final steps are in the movie: in front of the doll-maker's shop,he tramples on the toy which cries "mummy";then he digs a hole in the garden ...gradually we feel that that man is irrational.The atmosphere Preminger builds is astonishing.Most of the places recall childhood because Stephen (and probably Ann too) are still big children.When Stephen looks for Bunny in the school,he seems to play hide-and-seek ,which predates the extraordinary finale when everything becomes a game .The story itself is a giant hide-and -seek in London .The only flaw of this absorbing psychological thriller is the wrong tracks the writers felt compelled to disseminate all along the film:the landlord,with his whip which may or may not have belonged to Sade (a character Keir Dullea would portray later in his career),provides the low point of the work.This is minor quibble:"Bunny Lake is missing" masterfully renewed the Freudian movies of the forties ("Cat People" "Secret Beyond the Door" "Spellbound" "Dark mirror" etc)and should not be missed .Like this?try this...."The forgotten" Joseph Ruben 2004.
There's something undeniably perverse about the behaviours of many of the story's characters and this not only complicates the investigation but also increases the number of potential suspects.After arriving in London from the United States, single mother Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) takes her 4-year-old daughter, Bunny, to be enrolled at a local nursery.
And no matter what you do with it, it still tastes like swill and swallows like slime." This exchange is one of the many pleasures of Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake Is Missing...a movie made up of a collection of eccentric and creepy performances, dialogue by John and Penelope Mortimer which is unexpectedly witty, an atmosphere of foreboding and dread, photography that keeps us in the mood for the worst to happen, and a steady performance at the heart of the film by Lawrence Olivier as Superintendent Newhouse, Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) has arrived in London to join her older brother, Stephen (Keir Dullea).
Mostly he pumped out overwrought epics like "Exodus"; bloated biopics like "Saint Joan"; slick trash like "River of No Return" and "Hurry Sundown" (remember THAT mess?); and let's not forget 1963 when he crammed all his skills into one overwrought, bloated, slick, trashy epic, "The Cardinal," which reveals less about the Roman Catholic church than "The Sound of Music" does about the Anschluss."Bunny" shows early flickers of promise-- eccentric Brits, missing kid, anticipation of Olivier, Noel Coward and the Zombies-- but it quickly bogs down, and so badly that even the climax is boring.There are a few good scenes-- creepy moments as when brother Dullea takes a bath while sister Lynley is perched on the edge of the tub.
Bearing all the hallmarks of an Otto Preminger production — long takes, admirably fluid camera movement and stand-out performances, both good (Dullea, Olivier, Hunt, Massey, Currie) and bad (Lynley, Coward) — this psychological thriller rates as first-class entertainment.
Here,overtones of incest and masochism are added to his already extensive sexual palette.Mr K.Dullea and Miss C.Lynley are actually rather good as the siblings whose relationship may be a little too close for comfort.When her daughter disappears,the police - in the person of Mr L.Olivier are called in.Now here we have an actor only too willing to emote furiously and assume funny accents in the hope that it might be confused with great acting but Mr Preminger keeps firmly in control of him,teasing from him one of his more convincing movie performances, probably his best of the 60s apart from "Term of Trial".
On the other hand Laurence Olivier is very subdued and convincing as Police Superintendent investigating the crime and Noel Coward relishes his role as the nosy and somewhat unsettling landlord.Produced and Directed by Otto Preminger who seemed at his most effective in the Mystery/Thriller Genre's and also worked well in the Black and White medium.The film also features a classic Saul Bass title sequence and an effective score from composer Paul Glass.
Ann Lake (Carol Lynley), newly-arrived in London, goes to pick up her daughter, Bunny, from school, but no one there seems to know the girl.