I feel Carol Lynley’s passing merits further appreciation. “Bunny Lake is Missing” from 1965 — the same year that Lynley appeared in Playboy — provides some fascinating elements and crossovers that make it a cult delight. At 17 Lynley played a girl in trouble in “Blue Denim”. The word “abortion” isn’t spoken in that film, but it is in Bunny Lake, where she’s a single mother.
Keir Dullea plays Lynley’s brother. When I was speaking with him a few years ago, Dullea told me that Stanley Kubrick called his agent out of the blue, offering him the part of astronaut Dave Bowman in “2001: A Space Odyssey” — a role that Dullea didn’t even know about. Kubrick had spotted him in something, and that something was most likely Bunny Lake.
Laurence Olivier is shown chatting briefly with his old cohort Noel Coward in the film, to their presumed mutual amusement, but the most curious scene is with Olivier and Lynley at a pub. Swinging London bursts onto a TV screen with the appearance of the Zombies! You won’t see this video on YouTube, which implies to me that if I were to post the clip there it would be yanked. So I’ll put it here as a DogRat exclusive.
Edit: I’ve posted the video to YouTube in the hope it won’t be deleted.
Follow-up: I was right the first time! YouTube has deleted the video.
“Just Out of Reach” can be heard again later in the film, being played on a radio.
