Behind the Scenes: Bunny Lake Is Missing (Preminger, 1965) with Carol Lynley and Keir Dullea

Florence Olivier, often acclaimed as the greatest living actor, returns to the screen after three triumphant years as star and director of the British National Theatre. Carol Linley plays Bunny's mother. They arrived just a few days ago from America. This morning at nine, she took her four-year-old daughter to a nursery school. When she returned at noon to pick the child up, Bunny During the next eight hours, the search for Bunny continues relentlessly. Everybody becomes a suspect. I just want to find one simple thing. One small, simple proof. Proof of what? That Bunny Lake exists. Well, perhaps I should have called the picture, Does Bunny Lake Really Exist? What is it, Duchess? You cold? Has that buttermilk, flesh, all frozen? Cold, my girl? Some would be honored, may I tell you that by my touch. There are those in the BBC who bear like medals, bruises left by the love of Horatio Wilson. That, of course, was Noel Coward, who needs no introduction. He plays in the picture. No. No, I won't tell you the story, because I want you to join the search for Bunny Lake. And I want you to join it from the very beginning. Therefore, we have adopted an iron rule that nobody may be admitted to the theatre after the picture has started. Of course, you may leave any time you want to, if you can tear yourself away. But you must come promptly at the beginning. So please, check the starting times in your theatre and come on time. Thank you. Otto knew cinema. He had done a lot of, you know, like Laura, and when he was on the contract with Fox, I believe, you know, I guess the late 40s, early 50s, he did some really terrific movies. And he knew how to shoot it. And he knew what he wanted in a performance. But if the actor stalled, or anybody, you know, on the technical side, end of it who's stalled, then it would hit the fan. Definitely. And I had a wonderful part in Bunny Lake. And I'll always be grateful for the part and the experience. I've done 55 feature films, but this is one of the best ones I've ever done. I had originally wanted to do Exodus. And I wrote him a letter saying I wanted to do it. And I never heard back. And I think I met him at his office for the Cardinal. And I took to him right away. I mean, a lot of people had problems with him. I did not. I just adored him. He was very funny. And I had a theater background, which Otto, as you probably know, had too. And he would tell you what he wanted. And then he wanted you to do it right away. And I understood that. I would just do it right away. So I had absolutely no problem with him. Other actors, you know, would want to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about it. Some of them had to like warm up gradually. He didn't like that either. And but if you did what he wanted, and he was generally, I knew he was right. You know, I knew I was working with somebody who understood cinema and knew, you know, how to do it. And so I just did whatever it is he told me to do. And we got along beautifully. But there were other people he did not. I played Tom Tryon's sister as a black hair. This is Otto's idea. I just went for it. And Otto said that he was going to turn me into a black hair because as a blonde, and I'm naturally very blonde, but he said, you are too pretty. You know, we've got to dull you down. So I said, okay. He said, and after the, you know, you finished doing the black haired part, he said, we will have you turn back into being blonde. And if all your hair falls out, I will buy you a wig. I said, okay. And I become a taxi dancer, prostitute, who knows. And anyway, I die in childbirth. And then I come back about 18 years later as my daughter. And by this time, I'm a redhead. I think I made a better redhead than black haired, but that was all Otto's idea. And I just went with it. And with Otto, there was always that degree of tension because you never knew who was going to get axed. And you just hope not to be standing next to the person because when Otto got really angry and started shouting, he sprayed his mouth. So you wanted to get out of the way. In private life, I found him, he was very funny. He was very witty and this wry kind of, you know, sense of humor. But on the set, it had to be done his way and right away. And if not, he would start getting agitated. And then when he got agitated, you know, he was quite bald. He claimed he shaved his head. I don't know. But you could see the veins would start to pop. And I'd see the veins start to come up and I'd go, oh God. And then he'd turn, you know, really bright red and he'd start shouting. And Otto's big joke and the actors would just, you know, fall apart, which like you couldn't do that because Otto could smell fear. He could walk into a room of 500 people and smell the ones who were afraid of him and then go right to it, you know. And he could also smell that when you weren't afraid of him, which I had no problem. And Burgess Meredith had no problem. He was very, very fond of Burgess. And he also, which is not polite to say, but it's true. When his idea of a joke, when the actor was like falling apart and quivering, he'd yell, come up and get into their ear and say, relax! And the actor would go, ah! And of course fall apart even more, you know. And people were led away by assistants quite a lot, you know. They'd come in on each elbow and you'd never see them again. And then some people would quit, you know. It was a question of fear. And I'm not afraid of very much. The only thing I'm really afraid of is height. Sometimes when we weren't shooting, he would invite me over to the house for dinner. And one night, because I lived near him in New York, and he said, you must come over for dinner. I want you to meet the Mortimers. John Penelope Mortimer. And I said, great. And I went over. And he said, they're writing a movie for you. It's called Bunny Lake is Missing. And they kind of told me the story. And they said that they were writing it for me. And apparently it had been a book, which I had no idea. Nobody told me. But it happened. And Columbia at the time had wanted Jane Fonda, who just came off a movie called Cat Blue. And Otto was absolutely adamant that I do it, because it was written for me, the movie. You know, about three months later, I'm in London shooting it. And at one point, I was out here, and Otto was here. And he said, but your part, they want Ryan O'Neill to play your brother. And I said, well, all right. And he said, well, what do you think about Keir Dullea? And I said, well, you know, he actually looks like my brother. Very much so. And so Otto got Keir Dullea, you know. Because we do look alike. My face is broader and rounder, but there is a big similarity. Keir and I got along great. Absolutely great. He would get a little nervous around Otto, and I'd go, oh, God. You know, but Otto really wasn't hard on him. The hours were rough. And it was like six weeks of night shooting, six days a week, which is rough. Because I'm a day person. I'm not a night person. But when you're working with Lawrence Olivier and Noel Coward, and you've got these great scenes to do, it's not difficult at all. It's much, much more difficult when you're doing, I don't know, I'm looking for a polite word, nonsense. Let's just say nonsense. This is difficult. Where I call it's making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. When you're making something that has a lot of good stuff, it's just very, very easy. The only real direction he did is that it was like the first week of shooting. And it was about 12 o'clock right before lunch, and Otto came up to me, and he said, Carol, he said, you're very stiff. This is not looking out. And I said, oh, Otto, I'm just so in awe of Lawrence Olivier that, you know, I grew up watching the movies on TV, and I can't believe I'm really, you know, working with Lawrence Olivier. And he looked down at his watch, and he said, well, Carol, he said, we're going to break for lunch now. I will give you one hour to get over it. Or you see that little blonde over there? She's going to be playing your part. And of course, I went to lunch and got over it very, very quickly. And with Olivier, of course, you know, and he likes to be called Larry, so it's not an affectation. And Larry said, you know, when I agreed to do this, because he was doing Othello, and he would come like midnight and shoot through the night with us. And he said, Otto, my dear man, I don't want any screaming around me. So whenever Olivier was around, it was all very tranquil and, you know, very nice. Olivier was very, very sweet. He was sort of jokey. He was like, he liked to tell pretty bad jokes. And he and Noel had known each other since Larry was 19 years old. And so there was a lot of joking. And at night, we used to go into Larry's dressing room where he had a butler who used to keep us supplied with ice cold Coca Colas, and an endless supply of violets. And we would try just to keep ourselves awake. Because with that kind of night shooting, if you go to sleep, you're dead in the water because you can't wake up. Or if you do, you're kind of groggy. And this was not a movie that I could be very groggy in, you know. And I have always worked a lot with English actors. And the way most English actors work is that you get on with it. You do it. Some actors work out of fear. Some actors work out of anger. Some actors have to build themselves up to do it. Some actors are afraid of doing it. I prefer just to do it. If you thought about it, it was a little scary. The movie daughter was about four. My daughter was about four in real life. Otto's twins were about four. And Larry had children late in life with John Plowright, and they were about four. So we all had little four-year-olds. And we all sort of like met. It was just strange. It was very strange. And before I actually started the movie, I went to a very well-known psychiatrist here in L.A. because I didn't know how I was going to handle it. And I said, you know, I'm afraid to do it because I'm afraid that if I make it reality, it'll come true. And he said, no. He said, that's absolutely not true. There is that separation between reality and fiction. It had a rhythm to it. And it starts a little on the slow side. And you think, uh-oh. And then it starts. And then like the last half of the movie, all hell breaks loose. And it takes your breath away, at least I think so. But it had a rhythm to it. And the long shots, of which there were a lot, of tracking shots, a lot of the rhythm was my body rhythm, like how fast I ran, when I slowed down, what I did. And that's what happens with that of a movie, is that the speed of the movie takes some of its own rhythm from the rhythm of the actor. If you look at John Wayne movies, and you see a long shot of John Wayne, and you see the rhythm and the way he walks, it kind of made the movie go along. I was the one that was moving the most. And Otto did a lot of tracking shots. So with that, when you do tracking shots like that, you have to work with the camera. You can't go ahead of it. You can't lag behind it. The camera guy sort of takes his movements off of your movements, and you work together. And it was just one of the... And it worked beautifully. And the actor that came to us around midnight, who was a stage actor and a film actor called Finley Curry. And around midnight, I was introduced to Finley. And he said, Carol, will you come into my dressing room and talk to me, and we can go over the lines. And I said, of course, Finley. So I went in, and we were going over the lines. And he said, Carol, you know, I've just done a matinee, an evening performance. I am 84 years old. And if I forget my lines, they'll say I'm losing it. I thought, oh my God. So in between setups, I'd go over the lines with Finley, and he'd tell me stories about doing Shakespeare in 1911 across the United States. You know, it's just wonderful, absolutely wonderful. He said to Otto, he said, I only request one thing, is that I have to shoot this sitting down, because I've just done a matinee, an evening performance, and I am 84 years old. And dear Otto, may I shoot this sitting down? And Otto said, of course. And in the scene at the bottom of the hospital, you know, where I run into the room, I go through the basement, and I run into the room, and it's all these mice that they're using for experiments. Otto locked me in. You know, it was a great joke. He locked me in there and shut off the lights, and I'm going, let me out, let me out. He laughed his head off. He thought that was really funny. The movie had great photography, Dennis Koo, who went on to be one of the best English cinematographers. You know, and the black and white lighting is so great. Hope had said that when Otto died, I don't know who it was, but somebody bought his catalog of films, but she wouldn't release Funny Lake because they wanted to colorize it. Because when you colorize, you eliminate shadows, and the shadows of this movie are fabulous, you know. When I break the window and I get into the house, and he's getting ready to probably strangle the little girl. And actually, it was my idea. It was written, you know, just as the lines, but I decided to do it. It's like when I talked to him when we were both children, because obviously he had a fixation, you know, on us as children, and that's why he wanted to get rid of the little girl. And I just said, Stevie, you know, don't do that, Stevie. I talked to him like he was four, and I was three, and it kind of unnerved Keir, but it worked. It really worked. And then on the swing thing, Otto said, what nursery rhyme do you want to do? And I said, here we go around the mulberry bush, because I used to do that as a kid. It was really good because Jerry Fisher, Dennis Koop, actually, was the camera guy, and they built something off the swing. So as the swing goes up, he and I went up together, and the swing got quite high. And I thought, well, one of us is going to get killed on this swing thing, you know. But it worked. It really did work. Somewhere in the middle of it, towards, well, the last three weeks of it, I developed what the English call a seeping appendix. And Otto got the doctor, and the doctor said I had to have my appendix out immediately. And he said, you know, it's your decision. What do you want to do? And I said, I mean, every shot for the next three weeks. I said, you're going to have to shut the movie down while I do this. And I said, I tell you what, Otto, you know, why don't we have a nurse on the set with me, and if my appendix breaks, you know, take me to the hospital. And so there was always a nurse on the set. And it was all the running and the jumping. And at the very end, I was getting, it's in black and white, so you can't see it, but I was getting yellower and yellower. And they didn't have to put the circles under my eyes. They were there. At the very end of the movie, we shot it in sequence. You know, I'm carrying little Suki. She was a beautiful little girl, but she was a big bone little girl. She was quite heavy. I thought, oh, if I can just get out of camera range without carrying this kid, get it down. And then after the whole thing was over, I got on a plane and went to L.A., and the doctor here said I had mononucleosis, that I didn't have a CP appendix. So I don't know. Bunny Lake was a slow starter. It really wasn't that successful when it first came out, and now it's like a major cult movie and recognized for what it is. It's a class act. Otto was a class act as a filmmaker. The other actors were class acts. It's different than some people have a film history of beach bongo bikini, you know, which I don't put them down because everybody has to work, but it's not something that you could, you know, look back. And people say, well, name some of your movies. And I say, look, I've been in 55 movies over a period of 45 years. I said, we could be here from tomorrow, you know, if I go rattling off, you know. And I said, but what I usually just say is most people have seen them side an adventure, and most everybody says, oh, yes, of course. Except for one lady who said, what? And I said, you mean you haven't seen it? She said, no. I said, well, you're the only one, you know. But I think most everybody has seen that one. So it's a body of work that, you know, that you could say, I did it. I was there. I was in the arena. I gave it my best. I will continue to do it my best, you know. I was out here in California, and it was my birthday or something like that. And Otto said, Carol, we must have dinner. I said, okay. And we were having dinner. And he said, we've got a birthday coming up. And I said, yes, I do. And he said, well, I'm going to give you a birthday present. And I said, great, Otto. He said, I'm going to give you French. And there was a wonderful French teacher, Michelle Thomas. And Otto arranged for me to take French lessons for two and a half years. And now I speak it a little bit. Basically, I speak Spanish. But, you know, I mean, it was just a very lovely gesture. I think towards the end, Otto became more famous for being famous than his movies, which is wrong because his movies are brilliant. And sometimes when they reviewed his movies, they reviewed him, not the movie. And at one point, he called me up and he said, he said, you must stop this immediately. And I said, what do you mean? He said, you are saying nice things about me. He said, you're going to ruin my reputation. You must stop it now.