Family man and gangster Abel Davos (Lino Ventura), holed up in Italy for over a decade, needs some startup money in order to return to France, where he’s been sentenced to death. With Milan’s Duomo looming in the background (shot on location), he and a crony execute a split-second payroll heist — in broad daylight — then begin a lightning-fast getaway via underground passages, cars, motorcycle, bus, speedboat, and ambulance. Only the beginning of the mounting mayhem.
Bridging argot-rich ’50s masterworks like Dassin’s Rififi and Becker’s Touchez Pas Au Grisbi with Melville’s pared-down thrillers of the ’60s, Classe Tous Risque (referring to a kind of insurance policy, à la Double Indemnity, but also a pun on “tourist class”) is a penetrating study of a tough guy at the end of his rope, drawn from screenwriter and ex-con José Giovanni’s first-hand knowledge of the post-war French underworld.
“Film noir is a French coinage but France’s homegrown crime movies, a staple of the 1950s and early ’60s, seldom get their due in the United States, however first-rate they might be. Case in point: Claude Sautet’s 1960 slam dunk Classe Tous Risque.” — J. Hoberman, The New York Times
“Powerful and timeless.” — John Woo
“As revolutionary as Breathless.” — Bertrand Tavernier
“Like discovering a bottle of marvelous French wine you didn’t remember you had, opening it and finding it every bit as delicious as its reputation promised. That’s how good this classic fatalistic French gangster film is.” — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
“Never wastes a minute of your time, right up to its abrupt ending: this is condensed, intense story-telling that never once loosens its grip.” — David Gritten, Daily Telegraph
“The young Belmondo alone is worth the price of admission to Classe Tous Risque.” — Andrew Sarris, Observer
“Belmondo is the clincher: He’s got so much jaunty charisma, the screen can barely contain him.” — Jan Stewart, Newsday
Directed with an acute feeling for characterization, this was the first major feature for Sautet (Cesar and Rosalie, Les Choses de la Vie, Original title: Un Coeur en Hiver, etc.) and the first teaming of the two great French cinema icons: former wrestling champ Ventura, here making a career-decisive move into lead roles, and 26-year-old New Wave wunderkind Jean-Paul Belmondo, straight from Godard’s Breathless.
Despite a “Who’s Who” crew and cast — including composer Georges Delerue (Contempt), cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet (Au Hasard Balthazar), and co-stars Marcel Dalio (Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game, Casablanca) and Sandra Milo (the late star of Fellini’s 8 1/2) — Classe Tous Risque got lost in the New Wave shuffle. In this country, a dubbed version called The Big Risk came and went in drive-ins and grindhouses before disappearing — until Rialto Pictures’ first U.S. release of the complete French language version in 2005.
2024 marks the centennial of director Claude Sautet.
Restored in 4K HDR Dolby Vision by TF1 Studio at Éclair Classics laboratory, from the original camera negative and the French sound negative. Funding provided by the CNC, Coin de Mire Cinéma, and OCS.