When Bette Davis as Bunny O’Hare came to Belen (Part 1)

(La Historia del Rio Abajo is a regular column about Valencia County history written by members of the Valencia County Historical Society since 1998.

Opinions expressed in this and all columns of La Historia del Rio Abajo are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the Valencia County Historical Society or any other group or individual.)

Belen has been chosen as the site of Hollywood movies for over half a century. As a result, dozens of famous movie stars have crossed our small-town stage, including Ernest Borgnine, David Bowie, Kevin Costner, Bette Davis, Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Stargazers have made sightings of these celebrities in many parts of Belen, including in restaurants like Pete’s and Montaño’s and in businesses like the old Becker-Dalies store on South Main Street.

Some stars could not have been more congenial, talking to everyone they met and gladly signing autographs on everything from photos to paper napkins. Other stars could not have been bothered.

Belen’s first full-length movie was filmed in October 1970. Starring Ernest Borgnine and Bette Davis, “Bunny O’Hare” was shot in Belen in three days; the rest of the movie was shot in Albuquerque and the surrounding countryside.

It is fun to watch “Bunny O’Hare” to search for friends and relatives in crowd scenes and to see old familiar buildings in the background.

It’s also fun to learn about “Bunny O’Hare’s” plot, stars, filming, reception and impact on movie-making in Belen in the 1970s and ever since.

The plot

Written by Stanley Z. Cherry and Coslough Johnson, “Bunny O’Hare” is about a middle-aged widow, played by Bette Davis, who loses her house when her bank mistakenly forecloses on her mortgage.

Resentful, Bunny seeks revenge against the bank with the help of a veteran bank robber named Bill Green, played by Ernest Borgnine, who has escaped from prison and is trying to “go straight” working as a plumber.

Learning of Bill’s criminal past, Bunny persuades him to teach her the tricks of his former trade. Rather than simply serve as her bank robbing coach, a gullible Bill joins Bunny in her first bank heist, in Belen. They are successful and make their getaway from the scene of the crime on Bill’s Triumph motorcycle.

Disguised as hippies, Bunny and Bill continue to rob banks on a crime spree to help Bunny’s ne’er-do-well, financially strapped adult children, played by Reva Rose and John Astin.

An inept police lieutenant, played by Jack Cassidy, fails to track the fugitives down, even with the help of a pretty criminologist, played by Joan Delaney, and a small army of policemen in cars and on motorcycles.

The chase to capture Bunny and Bill continues across New Mexico’s rugged landscape and down the narrow shopping aisles at Montgomery Ward in the old Winrock Shopping Center.

Although initially an odd couple, Bunny and Bill predictably fall in love and escape across the border and into Mexico. Determined to finally think of her own needs rather than the needs of her adult children, Bunny looks back across the border and, in her last defiant words to her irresponsible children, screams, “Screw ‘em!” Bunny and Bill smile at each other as they ride away into a hopefully blissful future.

Leading stars

“Bunny O’Hare” stars Bette Davis as the leading lady during the twilight of her career. A glamorous and talented actress in her youth, she won two Oscars, in 1935 and 1938.

She made other famous movies, including “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” (1962) and “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte” (1964), but leading roles were becoming harder for her to come by in the late 1960s.

Ernest Borgnine plays the part of Bill Green, Bunny’s reluctant partner in crime. Borgnine was a natural for his role as Davis’s amicable companion in this off-beat romantic comedy.

Borgnine had previously starred in many critically-acclaimed movies, including “Marty,” for which he had won an Academy Award in 1956. In the 1960s he had gained popularity as a naval officer in the TV comedy series, “McHale’s Navy.” He later co-starred in “Convoy” (1978), a popular movie made partly in Belen.

Borgnine and Davis had starred in another comedy, “The Catered Affair,” in 1956. Borgnine later wrote that it was “quite a thrill to get together” with Davis on the set of “Bunny O’Hare.” In his words, he “loved and respected” his famous friend.

Although hardly cast in a starring role, New Mexico Gov. David Cargo also appeared in “Bunny O’Hare,” playing a state police trooper. As governor, Cargo had worked hard to attract Hollywood movie makers to New Mexico. His goal was to help the state become a major movie location for the Hollywood movie industry.

In the process of working with movie makers — and for his own fame and amusement—Cargo had had cameo appearances as a reporter in “The Good Guys and the Bad Guys” (1969), a governor in “Up in the Cellar” (1970) and a corporal in “The Gatling Gun” (1971).

Cargo’s strikingly beautiful wife, the former Ida Jo Anaya, of Belen, visited him on the “Bunny O’Hare” shooting set. She could easily have been a movie star.

Cargo enjoyed his acting “career” although, as he wrote in his autobiography, there were some controversial moments. He was almost arrested for impersonating a police officer while acting in “Bunny O’Hare,” and he did not realize that “Up in the Cellar” was rated R until it was already released in movie theaters. Once he saw it, he was convinced that it should have been rated X.

Bunny O’Hare in Belen

The American International Pictures (AIP) opted to film scenes from “Bunny O’Hare” in Belen thanks to the cooperative efforts of Elliot Schick, the movie’s production manager, and Virginia Johnston of the Belen Chamber of Commerce.

AIP was particularly interested in Belen because it had three buildings that could serve as bank buildings in a movie that was all about banks and bank robberies. All three structures were conveniently located within a short distance of each other on Becker Avenue.

The three buildings were the Belen Savings and Loan Association building, which became the fictional Los Lunas Savings and Loan in the movie, the old Belen Hotel, which became the fictional Eagle Merchant Bank, and the old Central Hotel, which became the Belen branch of the fictional New Mexico National Bank.

Filming began in Belen at 7:30 a.m., Thursday, Oct. 15, 1970. The first scene was set at the Belen Savings and Loan building. It was an important scene because the Savings and Loan was the target of Bunny and Bill’s first big bank robbery.

The scene included at least 28 extras hired in Belen, mostly to play the roles of “radical” hippies protesting against the bank for owning agricultural property that paid farm workers unfair wages.

As Bunny and Bill prepare to enter the bank, Bill decides that they should wear disguises, dressing like hippies in the protest. Thereafter, Bill wears a phony beard and a leather newsboy hat, while Bunny wears a long blonde wig, a big floppy hat and sunglasses. They also wear tie-died trousers, panchos and fringed vests, typical counterculture clothes of the early 1970s.

Filming continued on Friday, Oct. 16, but had to be stopped the next day due to inclement weather. Final scenes were filmed on the following Monday, Oct. 19.

(Part 2 of this issue of La Historia del Rio Abajo will appear in a future edition of the News-Bulletin.)