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Perhaps motivated by the success of La La Land, Criterion has reissued two impressive Jacques Demy musicals as separate releases. This all-singing, all-dancing homage to candy-colored vintage Hollywood musicals is a captivating Franco-American hybrid that allows free rein to Demy’s marvelously positive romantic philosophy.

The Young Girls of Rochefort

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 717

1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 125 min. / Les Demoiselles de Rochefort / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 11, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, Danielle Darrieux, George Chakiris, Gene Kelly, Michel Piccoli, Jacques Perrin

Cinematography: Ghislain Cloquet

Production Designer: Bernard Evein

Film Editor: Jean Hamon

Original Music: Michel Legrand

Produced by Mag Bodard, Gilbert de Goldschmidt

Written and Directed by Jacques Demy

I was going to squeak by reviewing only Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but the interest in the new La La Land prompted some emails and messages that tell me a revisit of the charming...

Simone Simon: Remembering the 'Cat People' and 'La Bête Humaine' star (photo: Simone Simon 'Cat People' publicity) Pert, pretty, pouty, and fiery-tempered Simone Simon – who died at age 94 ten years ago, on Feb. 22, 2005 – is best known for her starring role in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie classic Cat People (1942). Those aware of the existence of film industries outside Hollywood will also remember Simon for her button-nosed femme fatale in Jean Renoir's French film noir La Bête Humaine (1938).[1] In fact, long before Brigitte Bardot, Annette Stroyberg, Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld, Ann-Margret, and Barbarella's Jane Fonda became known as cinema's Sex Kittens, Simone Simon exuded feline charm – with a tad of puppy dog wistfulness – in a film career that spanned two continents and a quarter of a century. From the early '30s to the mid-'50s, she seduced men young and old on both...

Chicago – “Interpret as you wish,” invites narrator and filmmaker Jean Cocteau prior to his contemporary retelling of the Orpheus legend and the second installment of his Orphic Trilogy, which also includes 1930’s “The Blood of a Poet” and 1960’s “Testament of Orpheus.” Cocteau’s 1950 masterwork, simply titled “Orpheus,” is one of his most emotionally complex and deeply personal projects. It’s also a lot of fun.

Unlike other avant-garde filmmakers, Cocteau sports a immensely playful spirit that causes viewers to wholly embrace his onscreen abstractions rather than dissect them for their intended meaning. The titular protagonist in “Orpheus” is told by another character that the “dreamer must accept his dreams,” and Cocteau expects his audience to follow suit. This results in a picture of unforgettable images as whimsically absurd as they are dramatically resonant.

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0

Jean Marais stars as Orpheus, the poet famous in Greek mythology for journeying into...