Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)

October 3, 1965 (United States), February 10, 1966 (United Kingdom), release dates

Directed by Otto Preminger

Screenplay by John Mortimer, Penelope Mortimer

Based on the novel Bunny Lake Is Missing by Evelyn Piper

Music by Paul Glass

Edited by Peter Thornton

Cinematography by Denys N. Coop

Laurence Olivier as Superintendent Newhouse

Carol Lynley as Ann Lake

Keir Dullea as Steven Lake

Martita Hunt as Ada Ford

Anna Massey as Elvira Smollett

Damaris Hayman as Daphne Musgrave

Clive Revill as Sergeant Andrews

Finlay Currie as the doll maker/repairperson

Lucie Mannheim as the cook at the school

Noël Coward as Horatio Wilson, the landlord/neighbor

Adrienne Corri as Dorothy

Megs Jenkins as the hospital sister

Delphi Lawrence as the first mother

David Oxley as the doctor

Bill Maxam as the bartender

Richard Wattis as the clerk in the shipping liner office

Suky Appleby as Bunny Lake

Distributed by Columbia Pictures Corporation

A young American mother, Ann Lake, is a recent arrival in London. She drops off her child, nicknamed Bunny, at The Little Peoples Garden for the child’s first day of school. No teachers are there to greet her, so she leaves the child under the watchful eye of a cook in the kitchen so that she can return to her flat to meet the movers. When she is finished at home, she returns to the school to pick up her daughter, but no one there has any recollection of seeing the child. The police, led by Superintendent Newhouse, are called in to investigate, and during the investigation, some question if Ann Lake even has a child at all.

(This blog post about Bunny Lake Is Missing is almost all about spoilers.)

Bunny Lake Is Missing is described as a psychological thriller, and it’s easy to see why. The two main characters are brother and sister, and the narrative reveals that they came from a troubled family. Steven Lake describes his childhood for Superintendent Newhouse. He and his sister lost their father at the end of World War II, when he was run over by a tank driven by friendly forces. Their mother left her children on their own, and Steven saw himself as his sister’s caretaker. In fact, he, Ann, and Bunny have moved to London so he can work as a journalist and provide for all three of them.

From the beginning, viewers are probably inclined to see the film as a psychological thriller for another reason: The titles are done by Saul Bass, the same designer who created the titles for many of Alfred Hitchcock’s films. And Hitchcock’s films are described as psychological thrillers. The titles for Bunny Lake Is Missing show a hand peeling away layers of thick black paper, with the exaggerated sounds of paper ripping. By the time the opening credits were finished, I found the ripping sounds grating. I saw the film on DVD, and the opening credits sequence appears on a much smaller screen size than the rest of the film. I felt cramped and constrained from the moment the film started.

I see no reason why Bunny Lake Is Missing cannot also be called a neo-noir. The film has many elements of noir: extreme close-ups, dark and shadowy cinematography, despair, the mystery of a missing child. I found the story very unsettling because of the missing child, the implied feelings of romance between the brother and sister, the odd landlord/neighbor Horatio Wilson who tries to seduce Ann Lake in the middle of her unfolding tragedy. All of these details are creepy, and viewers are supposed to see them as creepy. They are supposed to suspect the lecherous neighbor.

Steven Lake is always dressed in a suit and tie. He moved to London because of his job as a journalist, and he has been supporting his sister and his niece. He is a success, and he cares about his family. Scruffiness and lechery, on the other hand, are not to be trusted. The landlord/neighbor Horatio Wilson comes under suspicion for these reasons.

But I think there is another subplot that pushes viewers away from suspecting the brother: youthful rebellion. Steven Lake is contrasted with others besides Horatio Wilson. The rock band The Zombies provided three songs to the soundtrack, and its members make an indirect appearance via a television broadcast in a pub where Superintendent Newhouse and Ann Lake talk. Steven Lake is a young man playing by the rules in 1965, and he certainly isn’t scruffy, singing in a rock band, and/or dancing to suggestive song lyrics. He is a conformist to the status quo and thus doesn’t arouse any suspicion—not at first. I have to admit, however, that I suspected the brother almost from the beginning, but I wonder if the advantage of a twenty-first-century perspective has more to do with that than any fault with the narrative.

I do wonder if present-day audiences are quicker to suspect Stephen Lake of the crime. I was pretty sure he was responsible for Bunny Lake’s disappearance about one half hour into the film. But according to Wikipedia, 1965 viewers were not admitted into the theater after the film started on-screen so they could gather all the clues from the beginning, before the surprise ending. (Click here for more information.)

Another hallmark of noir is ambiguity, and I found plenty of that at the conclusion of Bunny Lake Is Missing. Yes, Steven Lake is the kidnapper, and it’s clear that childhood events damaged him. But according to Wikipedia, the screenwriters changed many details in the book for the film version, including the identity of the murderer. What does that mean for other details about the film and its conclusion? What about Ann Lake? What would make her choose a life as a single, unmarried mother living with her brother rather than with the man she supposedly loved? I may have to read the novel of the same name, by Evelyn Piper, to find out. I thought the film raised as many intriguing and noirish questions as it answered.

For an explanation of some of the differences between the film and the book on which it is based, click here.

I understand that the director Otto Preminger wasn’t happy with the film and that it wasn’t well received by audiences in 1965. I have seen several of his films (but not all of them), and I wouldn’t call Bunny Lake Is Missing one of Preminger’s best. But I do think it deserves another look by modern audiences.