Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)

This engaging psycho-thriller truly is an overlooked treasure and probably the most underrated of all of the great Otto Preminger's films. I always thought that Carol Lynley was a very beautiful woman and a very strong presence in motion pictures, but until I saw BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING, I never realized what a magnificent actress Miss Lynley truly is. As the frantic single mom searching for her little girl who seems to have disappeared without a trace, Miss Lynley gives the performance of a lifetime, and Keir Dullea is also impressive as Lynley's concerned brother. Laurence Olivier, Martita Hunt, Noel Coward, and Finlay Currie are also in there doing their usual wonderful work. A must-see, especially for the mystery lover.

Fmovies: The American single mother Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) seeks out someone in the nursery Little People's Garden School in Hampstead. She finds a German cook and explains that she has just moved from the United States to London and she left her daughter Bunny Lake at the First Day Room alone with a baby. Now she needs to receive the delivery men at the apartment she rented and she needs to leave Bunny for a moment and the cook says that she can check on her daughter. When Ann returns, she does not find neither the cook nor Bunny and no one in the nursery seems to have seen the girl. Ann calls her brother Steven Lake (Keir Dullea) and the police. Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) investigates the case with his men and there is no evidence of the little girl. 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. The screenplay keeps the mystery and the tension until the end, when the viewer discovers the truth about Bunny Lake. The black and white cinematography is beautiful and the film shows the English rock band The Zombies in a television broadcast. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): Not available on DVD or Blu-Ray.

I don't remember how old I was when I saw "Bunny Lake is Missing" - I was only 5 years old when it was released in theaters, and I know that I saw it on television, so I must have been around 10 or 12. All I know is that I have remembered it to this day, and when even the title of a movie, seen only once at such a young age, is etched forever in your memory, you know it's something worth seeing again. I can't remember every detail of the plot, but I remember the haunting feeling I had after seeing this movie, the realization for the first time, being so young, that things truly are not always as they seem. I have often thought about this movie over the years, and have always watched for it among late-night television, and among video titles, and this is the first place I have ever found mention of it - I was beginning to think it was one of those childhood memories that came from a vivid dream rather then from reality. I am happy to know that my memory was real, and that there are those who feel this movie was truly as great as I remember it being. I hope that someday it is made available - I look forward to the day when I can see it again.

Bunny Lake Is Missing fmovies. Bunny Lake is Missing is directed by Otto Preminger and adapted to screenplay by John & Penelope Mortimer from the novel of the same name written by Marryam Modell (AKA: Evelyn Piper). It stars Laurence Olivier, Carol Lynley, Keir Dullea, Martita Hunt & Noel Coward. Music is by Paul Glass and cinematography by Denys N. Coop. 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. Yet time has been very kind to the film, after re-evaluations from auteurist critics the film has found a sturdy fan-base, giving it cult classic status and a reputation as a sleeper classic of its type. You feel that with its thematic links to Hitchcock's Psycho, Preminger wanted to make a film worthy of being in the same league as Hitch's classic. Certainly the marketing for the film lends one to think the makers wanted to be compared with it, that it of course isn't on a par with Psycho is a given, otherwise it would be more well known. But it's a damn fine picture, stitched together impeccably by Preminger, film holds attention and intrigue from Saul Bass' nifty opening credit sequence, right to the eerie denouement.

Here we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, The mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush on a cold and frosty morning.

With real London locations used and Coop's pin sharp black and white (shadowy) photography tight to the unsettling mood, story carries an air of psychological discord about it. The mystery element is strong, and this coupled with the edgy, near unhealthy, relationship between Ann and her brother Stephen (Dullea), makes for a "shifting in your seat" experience. Then there's the small matter of Noel Coward as Horatio Wilson, creepy landlord extraordinaire, he may not be in it for much, but the impression made creeps the flesh. Slotted into the tight narrative are scenes that the likes of Hitchcock, Welles and Kubrick would be proud of, where Preminger calls on his film noir know how to feverishly glide around a doll shop and track his actors as they cavort around a children's garden play area. All topped off by the supreme performance of Olivier as analytical Superintendent Newhouse, a man calm and versed in psychology, he is the perfect contrast to the hysteria and borderline mania that surrounds him.

Is it Hitchcockian? As some critics have called it? Well yes it is, but not overtly so, it has closer links in tone and narrative thrust to under seen British thrillers like Don't Talk to Strange Men (1962) and Taste of Fear (1961). Is it flawless? No! Dullea is way too animated, some character reactions to situations are eyebrow-raising and Paul Glass' score is at times maddeningly wrong for the mood sequence it accompanies. But they are problems easily forgivably when taking the film as a whole. 8.5/10

Taciturn director Preminger created here an atmospheric, beautifully shot film of mystery and oddity. Though it isn't 100% satisfying, it remains quite entertaining and visually arresting. Lynley, a newcomer to London, England, takes her four year-old daughter to nursery school and, in a hurry to meet movers at her new flat, briefly leaves the child in the custody of a rather unfriendly cook. Later, the cook has quit and the child is gone. Worse, no one seems to have ever known about the child or has ever even seen her except Lynley and Dullea. No tangible trace of the child seems to exist! Olivier is brought in to head up the investigation and scours all the various clues and suspects, all while trying to determine if there even IS a child to be searching for. The film kicks off with famously innovative Saul Bass titles and sets its contrived, but fascinating story in motion with skill. Lynley manages to come off rather well in a difficult role. Dullea is also strong in a part that never gets completely fleshed out. Olivier is reliably commanding and slick and offers a lesson in understated excellence. These performers are surrounded by a lustrous galaxy of terrific British character actors. Most notable is the delicious Hunt as the vaguely sinister, yet delightful headmistress of the school. Massey is also excellent as a frustrated teacher. Coward pops up as a creepy landlord with designs on Lynley. It is not easy to watch the somewhat disintegrated legend put the moves on her. Many other great people show up and, even if they don't get a moment of glory, their participation adds greatly to the class and feel of the film. A sense of dread and uncertainty hangs over the movie as the viewer is never exactly sure what is going on. As stylish and intriguing as the film is, certain sections drag on a bit too long, none more so than the climax, in which Lynley must fend off the villain of the piece and seems to go out of her way NOT to escape or harm the person, at times. Even with this and other gripes (like a needless, annoying and intrusive "appearance" from The Zombies), the film is well worth watching and deserves a better availability and reputation than it currently accords.

The vast range of responses to and assessments of this movie here are a tribute to what an odd film this is in many ways. And it's difficult to comment on some of its oddest features (chiefly the performances of Dullea and Lynley) without giving away aspects of the plot that it's best you don't know when seeing the movie. I guess it's safe to say that I found both of these performances underwhelming but adequate. To be fair, both of them come off better by the end of the film than they do in its first third. Your take on Lynley's character will definitely evolve as the film progresses, which must in some degree be to her credit.

But by far the most compelling reason to see the film is Olivier's rich and understated performance from the period post-Archie Rice but pre-Othello. It takes a while for his character to appear, but once he arrives, he is unquestionably the center of the film, at the true heart of what's good about it. (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. But everyone, from the various employees of the little girl's school to Olivier's sidekick to the fellow manning the shipping counter, are fabulously well-played. 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. On television, it's nearly impossible to see it in widescreen, and in fact the TV print isn't even pan-and-scan -- it's just stationary and incomplete, so over and over again we hear people talking whom we KNOW are on camera, but they're invisible to us. No attempt was made in the TV transfer to even bother to scan. It's definitely true that the film is less effective without the widescreen component, but it's still watchable, because you can clearly tell what you're NOT seeing, if that makes any sense at all!

One final note: I originally tracked this film down over a decade ago because of the interesting score by composer Paul Glass, totally unknown to me except for this film. Way back when, the soundtrack (on vinyl) for this film was kind of rare, and I had a copy and really loved the music. In the context of the film, the score alternates oddly between working quite well and being inappropriate or irritating. Sometimes (during the scene in the doll hospital for example) you can understand what the logic was behind the musical choice, but it's intrusive and simply not working. The score also adopts the unfortunate "in-joke"