Bunny Lake Is Missing is a psychological thriller directed and produced by Otto Preminger. Filmed in black and white widescreen format in London it was released in 1965. The score is by Paul Glass and the opening theme is often heard as a refrain. The Zombies also appear in a television broadcast.

Dismissed by both critics and Preminger as insignificant upon release, the film later earned a following as a cult classic, along with strong reviews by critics such as Andrew Sarris. The movie was at last released on DVD in 2005.

Plot

American single mother Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) has lately come to England from the US with her four-year-old daughter Felicia whom she calls by the nickname Bunny, planning to settle in London with her journalist brother Steven (Keir Dullea). After Bunny's first morning at her new school (The Little People's Garden) Ann comes to fetch her but Bunny is not there and nobody can remember even having seen her.

Police Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) faces an array of suspects in Bunny's disappearance. Among these is Ann's landlord, ageing writer and broadcaster Horatio Wilson (Noel Coward), who lets himself into the Lakes' new apartment as he pleases and is a whip-loving sado-masochist. Retired teacher Ada Ford (Martita Hunt) lives on the school's top floor and collects recordings of children's nightmares. Ada in turn tells Newhouse she thinks there is something "very unusual" about Ann's brother Steven.

Ann asks for reassurance from Newhouse that, although her daughter is illegitimate, the police will look for Bunny thoroughly. Meanwhile, Steven acts aggressively towards Newhouse, threatening to create a public scandal through his resources as a reporter unless the police quickly find Bunny.

The family further tell the police that all of the girl's belongings have vanished that same day in a mysterious burglary, along with her passport. The school authorities in turn report that they had never received a tuition check for Bunny. When Steven lets slip that Ann as a young girl had an imaginary friend whom she also called Bunny, Newhouse begins to wonder whether Bunny Lake ever really existed.

At her wits' end from not being believed, Ann suddenly recalls that, before Bunny's disappearance, the girl's doll had been taken in for repair. She sets off across nighttime London to try and get the doll back, thinking that with it in hand the police will have to believe her.

In the film's surprise ending, Ann reaches the "doll hospital" and finds the doll, only to be joined by Steven, who destroys the doll and strikes Ann. Steven checks Ann into a hospital but she manages to escape and tracks him down. Ann finds Steven taking Bunny from the boot of his car where he has evidently kept her all day and he is clearly about to murder the child. Calling him Stevie, Ann tries to distract her brother with reassurances and ever more frantic games from their childhood. Their dialogue hints at the film's earlier suggestions of incestuous feelings between the two of them.^[1][2] Steven deeply resents Bunny's father, and Bunny reminds him of having lost his sister in this way. At last, Newhouse and other policemen arrive. Steven is taken into custody and watches as Ann carries Bunny safely away.

Cast

Production Details

Adapting the original novel, Preminger re-set the story from New York to London, where he liked working. His dark, sinister vision of London made use of many real locations, including the "doll hospital" and a house that belonged to novelist Daphne du Maurier. Preminger had found the novel's denouement lacking in credibility so he changed the identity of the would-be murderer, which needed many re-writes from his British husband-and-wife scriptwriters John Mortimer and Penelope Mortimer before the famously demanding director was satisfied.^[3]

References

• Maria DiBattista (Princeton University): "Afterword". In: Evelyn Piper: Bunny Lake Is Missing (Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp) (The Feminist Press at The City University of New York: New York, 2004) 198-219 (ISBN 1-55861-474-5) (includes a discussion of the differences between Piper's novel and Preminger's film version).

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