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is missing. The 1965 film by Otto Preminger isn’t available on video or DVD; it can’t be found at rental stores. The film has practically vanished, and Preminger himself has become fodder for film history books and Turner Classic Movie marathons during which his better-known films are screened. Otherwise, he remains very much in the margins — unless you watched Batman in the 1960s, when he played Mr. Freeze.
Preminger directed some of the biggest names in Hollywood during his career, including John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and Kirk Douglas, even after leaving the studio system during the 1950s to become an independent director. He’s perhaps best known for 1959’s Anatomy of a Murder, with James Stewart and Lee Remick; and Carmen Jones, his 1954 retelling of Carmen that features Oscar Hammerstein lyrics, Bizet’s original score, and stars Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, and an all-black cast.
Despite his estimable career, Preminger always remained controversial (his The Man With the Golden Arm was among the first serious films to address drug addiction), and that fact, combined with his isolation from the studios, may be why some of his films have never been rereleased. Bunny Lake isn’t the only one missing: His much-lauded version of Porgy and Bess is still MIA — and that movie, starring Sidney Poitier and Sammy Davis Jr., was a hit, unlike Bunny Lake, which was panned upon its release.
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The dark, psychological mystery deals with Ann Lake’s search for her missing daughter, Bunny, who disappeared when Ann (played by Carol Lynley) left her to enroll at school. Bunny never registered, and no one at the school saw the girl. The police begin to suspect that Ann has created a child that doesn’t exist, a suspicion Stephen Lake (played by Keir Dullea, who starred as David Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey) only furthers. The film also has several notable cameos: Laurence Olivier plays superintendent Newhouse, Noel Coward plays Ann’s landlord, and The Zombies, the ’60s British pop band who perform the soundtrack, pop up throughout the film — kind of like Jonathan Richman in There’s Something About Mary. Kind of.
For a brief moment, Bunny Lake is Missing resurfaces when the USA Film Festival screens a new print of it during its First Monday Classics series. It’s a rare chance to see an especially rare film.
Shannon Sutlief
