Lola Bay of Angels

Newly restored gems from French master Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.) These newly restored gems from lyrical French master Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) are among the most charming and stylish rediscoveries of recent years. Both have original scores by Cherbourg composer Michel Legrand.

Lola chronicles the amorous adventures of a group of lonely hearts in the harbor town of Nantes, photographed in dazzling black & white Cinemascope. Starring Anouk Aimee in the title role as a nightclub singer, Lola is a more kind-hearted version of The Blue Angel crossed with a fondness for American cars, movies, and sailors on shore leave. Demy himself describes it as a "musical without music," and Jonathan Rosenbaum calls it "one of the most neglected of all the major works of the French New Wave." (1961; 90 mins.)

The inimitable Jeanne Moreau plays a glamorous compulsive gambler in Bay of Angels. Having shed her husband, child, and wealth, Moreau and her new young lover throw away their lives at the roulette wheel in the casinos of Monte Carlo and Nice. As they drift along the sun-splashed Riviera, the two succumb to the whims of chance, the fickleness of fate and love, and the endless spin of the wheel. (1963; 79 mins.)