Cinema Retro's David Savage reports on an exciting evening for
film buffs as Keir Dullea appeared at a New York screening of Otto
Preminger's Bunny Lake is Missing.
An SRO crowd jammed Film Forum last Thursday night, January 10th for
a screening of a gorgeously restored new 35mm print of BUNNY LAKE IS
MISSING (1965), perhaps the most keenly anticipated film in the
cinema's Otto Preminger Festival (January 2-17). The 7:30pm screening
was the one not to miss as the film's male lead, Keir Dullea, was
waiting in the wings to speak afterwards with Preminger scholar and
biographer Foster Hirsch, author of OTTO PREMINGER: THE MAN WHO WOULD
BE KING (Knopf).
The anticipation was palpable in the crowd as it quickly filled up the
theater to standing room only. Film critics jostled for room alongside
Mod-devotees (lured no doubt by the film's Swinging London setting and
cameo performance by The Zombies) while NYU film students squeezed in
next to graphic designers ("the Saul Bass title sequence is to die
for.") Everyone, it seemed, was there was some particular element this
special film held for them.
The luminous new 35mm print showed off the brilliant chiaroscuro of
Denys Coop's cinematography to a startling degree, echoing the overall
duality of the plot: truth vs. lie, existence vs. fantasy, etc. And
heightening the film's atmosphere was Paul Glass's score, which begins
the film with a plaintive flute, suggesting childhood innocence and
melancholy, then building towards the end to tension-inflected, spindly
harpsichord as the famous hide-and-seek game appears to be headed to a
horrible conclusion.
Preminger took 10 years to complete the screenplay, working with John
and Penelope Mortimer, and although he changed a key plot element from
Evelyn Piper's novel for his screen adaptation, his tenacious work
shines through sparkling dialogue full of wit, characters with depth
and ambiguity, and pacing that builds imperceptibly from a simple
head-scratcher to a taut thriller. Were today's laptop screenplays this
intelligent and well-wrought.
But as brilliant a director Preminger was, I think he shows off his
knack for pitch-perfect casting here even more impressively, from the
leads to the supporting players.
Not only does a very young Carol Lynley do an admirable job of
shouldering the bulk of the film on her 23 year-old shoulders (Columbia
urged Preminger to cast Ann Margret, revealed Keir Dullea), she does so
with an inscrutable facial expression that does not give away the
central mystery: whether her daughter is a delusion of her mind or is
in fact real – and missing.
Laurence Olivier's Superintendent Newhouse, the detective of the
Metropolitan Police assigned to the case, is a study in brilliant
under-acting, which Preminger championed. At the time of filming, he
was performing in Othello at the Old Vic and filmed his BUNNY LAKE
scenes at night after the stage performances, which makes it all the
more impressive. His Newhouse is unflappable, seasoned, and elegant in
his manner -- a London cop nearing retirement that seems wholly
credible. But he conveys a key lesson as a detective, one that everyone
should adopt: Never show your hand, lest they know what you're
thinking.
Also leaving this viewer wanting more was the character actress Martita
Hunt as Ada Ford, the batty old founder of the children's school who
spends her days in a garret atop the school working on a book of
children's nightmares. Her scenes crackle with Olivier, and afterwards,
Dullea revealed why: She was Olivier's mentor as a young actor at the
Old Vic, and he later credited much of his most valuable dramatic
expertise to her.
After the screening during a Q&A session with Foster Hirsch, Keir
Dullea spoke bitterly about Preminger's abusive treatment of him and
others in the cast during the filming, and lapsed into a cartoonish
Nazi accent to mimick him. It did nothing to add levity to the
anecdotes. The audience seemed stunned by the venom in Dullea's
accounts.
"As I watched myself in the final ten minutes of the film," Dullea
said, "I see how tense I was, and my performance seems very black and
white, and missing nuance . . . I owe that to Preminger's treatment of
me, which made me extremely nervous and self-conscious." Emotional
deliverance came in the person of director Irvin Kershner, Dullea
revealed, as he happened to be in London during the final weeks of
filming. Kershner had directed him in HOODLUM PRIEST (1961) and
director and actor had become close during the filming. When Dullea
asked Kershner how to deal with the beastly Preminger, Kersh advised:
"You can't leave this project feeling whipped. It will take an
emotional toll on you that could affect your work in the future. You're
never going to out-Preminger Preminger. You've got to find a way to
out-Dullea him, as only you can do." It was just the right advice and
Dullea said it gave him the fortitude to stand up to the director in an
ego-saving face-off near the end of the filming. But Dullea wouldn't go
into details, instead urging the audience to buy Hirsch's book to read
the full account.
Curiously, the film was ill-received by American critics when it was
released in 1965, but had the opposite effect on British critics, who,
besides lauding the actors, appreciated its grotty,
off-the-tourist-track London locations.
