|
BUNNY
LAKE IS MISSING
6/10
UK (UK-US)
1965 : Otto PREMINGER : 107 mins
An American
brother (Keir Dullea) and sister (Carol Lynley) have only just moved to
London when the sister’s little girl vanishes on first day at school.
As the police (Laurence Olivier) investigate, they discover scant evidence
of the child’s existence – could she in fact be merely a figment of her
mother’s imagination? Or is there a more sinister explanation?
Loosely adapted
by John and Penelope Mortimer from Evelyn Piper’s novel, Bunny Lake
is contrived and often laughable as a psychological thriller – a major
flaw is that, as in Rosemary’s Baby (which the is-she-imagining-it-all
angle prefigures) one of the characters is too obviously evil/unhinged
from the start.
Despite this,
the film is almost always watchable – and sometimes even enormously enjoyable
- as a camp black-comedy showcase for excellent, offbeat character-turns
from Olivier, Noel Coward, Martita Hunt and Anna Massey. Even the smallest
roles feature the likes of Adrienne Corri, Finlay Currie, Clive Revill,
Megs Jenkins and the non-pareil Richard Wattis, a gallery of talent
which easily compensates for the relatively colourless juvenile leads.
Until, that is, we reach the overextended two-hander climax which cruelly
exposes the limitations of youth, and also of the script.
Preminger’s
atmospheric wide-screen black-and-white direction makes the most of the
upscale Hampstead settings and oddball characters, and while he gets an
invaluable leg-up from Saul Bass’s typically inspired opening titles,
he’s done no favours at all by Paul Glass’s maddeningly over-emphatic
orchestral score.
As a breather
from the muzak, top pop combo The Zombies turn up on a pub TV showing
‘Ready Steady Go’, then later we hear their tunes blaring out of a transistor
radio. Several Zombies cuts are played - perhaps the result of some deal
between Preminger and their record company – so how bizarre it is that
these don’t include the band’s most famous track, the all-too-appropriate
1964 smash ‘She’s Not There’!
8th
December, 2003
(seen 7th December : CineSide,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
by Neil
Young
-
|
