Review of Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) by Lee M — 10 Jan 2011

Weird, saddist Alfred Hitchcock plot involves a sick brother and sister act that has police looking for a daughter. While the brother and sister behave unusually like husband and wife, they report lost their little girl after enrolling her into a school.

Sir Lawrence Olivier is the British detective that almost immediately wonders why no one, besides the two relations, have actually seen this little girl. Directed by the famous Otto Preminger.*.

Suspenseful with a maddening brother-sister relationship bordering on incest. If they had sex it would have been worse, but you get the idea of how abnormal this relationship appears.

(I have never liked Keir Dullea (the brother) in any film I have seen of him. He plays dispicable characters who are psycopaths or worse. With a name like Keir, is it no wonder?).

NOTE: * Dismissed by both critics and Preminger as insignificant upon its release in 1965, the film later earned a following as a cult classic, along with strong reviews by critics such as Andrew Sarris.

Columbia Pictures wanted Otto Preminger to cast Jane Fonda as Ann Lake, who was eager to play the role, but Preminger insisted upon using Carol Lynley.

Director: Otto Preminger.

Writers: John Mortimer (screenplay), Penelope Mortimer (screenplay).

Stars:

Keir Dullea (the brother).

Carol Lynley (the sister).

Laurence Olivier (the detective).