“Film noir” is a French coinage, but France's homegrown crime films, a staple of the '50s and early '60s, rarely get their due in America, no matter how top-notch they may be. Specific case: Claude Sautet's mate in 1960 “All Risk Class” known in English as “The Big Risk”.
Folded, abandoned and unchecked in its 1963 US release, Sautet's existential adventure was belatedly discovered about 20 years ago. Virtually unreleased since then, it premieres Friday at Film Forum in a new 4K restoration.
On the run in Italy, veteran mobster Abel Davos (France's then-reigning ugly pug, Lino Ventura) suffers from an acute illness. nostalgia. A tough guy who only needs a split second to accelerate from 5 to 50 mph, this volatile ruffian is further humanized as a devoted family man (who travels with his wife and two young children in tow) and, as the film will reveal , a loyal. comrade who expects the same in return.
To finance his return, Davos and an accomplice (Stan Krol) organize a shameless Snatch and grab in the daylight on a busy street in the center of Milan. Their mad dash to the French border involves multiple stolen cars, a diversionary motorcycle, a hijacked speedboat, and a beachfront shootout. The partners part ways halfway only to meet again, going in opposite directions on the road. The leak stops for an ecstatic critique: “We are the greatest!”
Its title, an untranslatable pun on train fares and insurance policies, “Classe Tous Risque” was adapted from a novel by José Giovanni, a Franco-Corsican ex-convict with an unpleasant wartime past and an inside knowledge of French penitentiaries. (Supporting actor Krol was a fellow prisoner.) The film's explosive beginning invites the adjective “breathless” and, indeed, “Classe” has a real relationship with Jean-Luc. Godard's first feature film: Afraid to search for Abel when he hides in Nice, his old gang sends Eric Stark, a freelance criminal played by “Breathless” star Jean-Paul Belmondo.
“Classe” and “Breathless” were filmed back-to-back and appeared within weeks of each other in March 1960. “Classe,” however, failed to set the world on fire, although the great Jean-Pierre Melville was a fan and later directed his masterful “Le Deuxième Souffle” (1966) from a novel by Giovanni with Ventura in a similar role. Re-released in Paris in 1971, “Classe” obtained better results; championed by young film buffs known as “MacMahonists” in honor of their favorite revival theater.
Belmondo, as charismatic here as in “Breathless,” plays a gentler thug, albeit one capable of dealing two-fisted damage at any moment. Once in Paris, where Davos' former associates regard him as someone resurrected from the dead, Stark acts as the older man's guardian angel.
In his 2005 review of “Classe,” New York Times critic AO Scott noted that the “manly chastity” of their bromance is offset by assigning Stark a female love interest, played with “delightful irrelevance” by Italian actress Sandra Milo. Best remembered as Marcello Mastroianni’s va-va-voom lover in Fellini’s “8½,” Milo gives “Classe” a third icon. She (she died in February at the age of 90).
Three stars shine. “Classe Tous Risques” may have been filmed on the mean streets of Paris, but by juxtaposing left jabs with sentimental hooks, it takes place in the world of cinema.
All Risk Class
Through Thursday at Film Forum in Manhattan; filmforum.org.
