''Bay of Angels'' () is a 1963 French

romantic drama film Romance films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their ...

written and directed by

Jacques Demy Jacques Demy (; 5 June 1931 – 27 October 1990) was a French director, screenwriter and lyricist. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Demy's films are celebrated ...

. Starring

Jeanne Moreau Jeanne Moreau (; 23 January 1928 – 31 July 2017) was a French actress, singer, screenwriter, director, and socialite. She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. Mo ...

and Claude Mann, it is Demy's second film and deals with the subject of gambling. The costumes were designed by

Pierre Cardin Pierre Cardin (born Pietro Costante Cardin; 2 July 1922 – 29 December 2020) was an Italian-born naturalised-French fashion designer. He is known for what were his avant-garde style and Space Age designs. He preferred geometry, geometric shap ...

. The film was Demy's last shot in

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

, with his next film, '' The Umbrellas of Cherbourg'' (1964), incorporating vivid colour.

Plot

Jean Fournier is a quiet young bank employee in Paris, living with his widowed father. After accompanying his colleague Caron to a casino and winning at roulette, he decides to have a holiday on the

French Riviera The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending fr ...

, despite his father's warning that gamblers always lose in the end. In the casino in

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million Monte Carlo Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...

and hit the tables there. Losing everything, they take the train back to Nice, where Jean convinces his father to send him some money. When this too is lost in the casino, Jean calls it a day and walks off, saying that he is returning to Paris. Hurt at this double rejection, of her and of their gambling partnership, Jackie angrily tells him to go. Shortly afterwards, she runs after him and the two embrace in the sunset.

Cast

as Jacqueline "Jackie" Demaistre * as Jean Fournier * Paul Guers as Caron * Henri Nassiet as Monsieur Fournier * as the bank director * as Marthe * Conchita Parodi as the hotel manager

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned ''Bay of Angels'' a score of 76 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Critics praised Moreau's performance, with Mann's being seen as weaker. For ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', Eugene Archer wrote, " emy'ssympathetic film is handicapped by the casting of Claude Mann, whose tentative Jean proves too passive to carry the weight assigned him by the script. ..The actress compenstates with a bravura demonstration of star power on the rampage. oreausmolders, pouts, flounces, rages, giggles, suffers and claws, in an exhibition of cinematic personality reminiscent of Dietrich in her best "Devil Is a Woman" days. With unfaltering artistry, she transforms her director's intimate essay into a glittering vehicle to display her four-octave dramatic range." In a 2015 retrospective,

Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael often defied the conse ...

of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' wrote, "What would this film be like without Jeanne Moreau? Even if the dialogue and direction were the same, the meanings wouldn’t be. The picture is almost an emanation of Moreau, inconceivable without her. ..His virtuoso sense of film rhythm turns this flimsy, capricious story about a gambling lady into a lyrical study in compulsion and luck. This is a magical, whirling little film, a triumph of style."

References

External links

* *
''Bay of Angels'' review
by ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

''
''Bay of Angels: Walking on Sand''
– an essay by

Terrence Rafferty Terrence Rafferty is a film critic who wrote regularly for ''The New Yorker'' during the 1990s. His writing has also appeared in ''Slate'', ''The Atlantic Monthly'', ''The Village Voice'', ''The Nation'', and ''The New York Times''. For a number ...

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...

1963 films 1963 romantic drama films 1960s French films 1960s French-language films Films about roulette Films directed by Jacques Demy Films scored by Michel Legrand Films set in Monaco Films set in Nice Films set in Paris Films shot in Monaco Films shot in Nice Films shot in Paris Films shot in Val-d'Oise French black-and-white films French romantic drama films {{1960s-France-film-stub