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.

The Thief (1952)

October 10, 1952, release date

Directed by Russell Rouse

Screenplay by Clarence Greene, Russell Rouse

Music by Herschel Burke Gilbert

Edited by Chester W. Schaeffer

Cinematography by Sam Leavitt

Ray Milland as Allan Fields (nuclear physicist/U.S. spy for the Soviet Union)

Martin Gabel as Mr. Bleek (Soviet agent/case officer)

Harry Bronson as Harris (FBI agent)

Rita Vale as Miss Philips (Soviet agent/courier)

Rex O’Malley as Beal (Soviet agent/courier)

Rita Gam as the girl living in the New York City brownstone

John McKutcheon as Dr. Linstrum

Joe Conlin as Walters

Distributed by United Artists

Produced by Harry Popkin Productions, Fran Productions

The Thief is the story of post–World War II espionage and intrigue, and the entire film includes not one single line of dialogue. I was intrigued when I heard about this feature of the film and wondered if it could possibly work. I think it does. It helps that Ray Milland is so good at expressing what he is thinking and feeling. And it helps that the film methodically lays out the routines that all the spies in the network follow so that viewers can understand a great deal of the plot through visuals alone. This is another B film that requires viewers to pay attention to details, and this point is even more important for modern viewers. I imagine contemporary (1952) viewers were more accustomed to the methods used to show the progression of the narrative in the film.

The Thief is another film that I have written about this year that can be compared with current events. The Thief is all about spying and collusion with foreign agents. The other three films noir with contemporary themes are:

◊ The Glass Wall (immigration and refugees).

◊ The Killer That Stalked New York (disease epidemic).

◊ City of Fear (fear of nuclear radiation and radiation poisoning).

Click on the title to see my separate posts on each film.

The opening credits of The Thief appear over a shot of the Capitol dome at night. As the credits draw to a close, the shadow of a man walks toward the viewers and starts to blot out the dome. The film then cuts to a shot of a ringing telephone. The camera pans to a man, fully clothed, lying on a bed. He doesn’t answer the phone, and he visibly relaxes when it stops ringing. He gets up, puts on his hat and coat, and leaves his apartment. The man is Dr. Allan Fields, and he works at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C. His position makes him an appealing target for Soviet infiltration, and he is already embroiled in betrayal and intrigue when the film starts.

The score serves to accentuate the suspense, tension, and danger, even though much of Dr. Fields’s spy work is routine. But the score isn’t the only thing that accentuates the danger ahead. The lack of dialogue is very disconcerting. It adds to the sense of isolation, the loneliness of a man trading secrets with an enemy of the state, as the film progresses.

(This blog post about The Thief contains some spoilers.)

As the plot unfolds, viewers learn that the telephone serves as a signal: It rings three times, stops ringing, then rings three times again, which means that it is time for Dr. Fields to pick up a message from his Soviet contact. Empty cigarette packs dropped on the street are used to pass messages, a method made easier because almost everyone in 1950s films smoked! Dr. Fields’s assignments are to photograph secret documents with a pocket-size camera and leave the photos at a library drop-off site. If his contact isn’t there at the library, he doesn’t drop off his photos.

One of the spies in the network is hit and killed by a car in New York City. A police officer comes to his aid and finds a canister containing photos in the spy’s hand. (This plot point reminds me of The House on 92nd Street, which starts with a spy being killed in an automobile accident, which in turn causes the espionage plans and the spy network to unravel.) When the pattern of telephone rings happens one morning instead of in the evening, Dr. Fields knows that something unusual has happened. He doesn’t know what has changed, but viewers have already seen the death of the spy in New York City and law enforcement’s discovery of the photos of secret documents.

Now, the plans change: Dr. Fields, and presumably all the spies in the network, must leave the country. Fields finds a Western Union telegram shoved under his apartment door. In it, he finds instructions on how to leave Washington, D.C., and go to New York City, where he will wait for further instructions. FBI agents are already on the case, and what happens during Fields’s stay in the New York City sequence has a profound effect on him and alters his course of action.

I won’t give away any more about the plot because I enjoyed The Thief a lot more than I thought I would. The details about 1950s spying were interesting, especially from a historical perspective. The film builds in suspense and tension, leading to a chase and an action sequence that had my stomach in a knot. The increasing suspense comes from being in Fields’s shoes. Almost everything in the narrative is told from his perspective, and viewers have no choice but to see everything from his point of view. He is betraying his country, but without him, there is no story. Thus, it is almost impossible not to identify with him, even if you don’t have any sympathy for him and what he is doing.