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.