5/5 review of Classe Tous Risques
  by Paul Kao (Sacramento, CA USA)
This is a classic French film noire starring Leno Ventura. Being film noire, things don't end well. Jean-Pierre Melville directed this crime-gone-wrong.

5/5 Neorealism meets Noir
  by Zedzian (Benicia, CA)
Four decades before anyone heard of Tony Soprano, Lino Ventura delivers an all-too-human gangster in 1960's Classe Tous Risques, co-starring a relative unknown named Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Sentenced to death in absentia in France, Ventura's "Abel Davos" has spent a decade in Italy on the lam. With the Italian police closing in, he performs a daring daylight snatch of 500,000 lira in the middle of Milan, then with his crony and his family (wife and 2 sons) tries to make their way back to France, hoping somehow that he's been forgotten.

Unfortunately, not only have the authorities not forgotten, his former cronies would like to forget him. Instead of personally getting involved, they end up sending a stranger, Eric Stark (Belmondo) to retrieve him (Davos has made his way to Nice) and bring him back to Paris. A quiet friendship and respect develops between the two men, which is literally and figuratively the heart of the story and contrasts well with the betrayal of Davos' former gang.

Sautet in some respects trumps Melville by adding an emotional component to this noir that Melville's work usually overlooks. This elevates Classes Tous Risques into the Gangster Pantheon.



3/5 Lino on the Lam
  by EddieLove (NYC, USA)
Lino's brute menace is tempered with a paternalistic edge and an almost goofy Belmondo provides a neat counterbalance in this low-key but tough noir that looks great on this DVD. The whole picture is impressive ,but not altogether involving. There's more here to admire than really enjoy.

5/5 a real masterpiece!
  by Romualdo Monteclar (hanover, pa)
I like this film so very much to consider it the best crime movie I have ever seen--a real masterpiece! Lino Ventura's performace is par excellence, with the supporting role smartly played by the young, handsome newcomer, Jean-Paul Belmondo; the rest of the cast--truly
wonderful--thanks to the very talented director, Monsieur Sautet. Highly
recommended!

3/5 A wanted man returns home
  by Ted M. (Pennsylvania, USA)
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

Classe tous risques, is a film based on a novel of the same name, about a gangster named Abel Davos, who returns home to France after hiding out in Italy.

I was not very familiar with the film, and despite its obscurity, I found it to be quite good.

The supplements are French and English theatrical trailers, an archival interview with actor, Lino Ventura, an interview with the novelist José Giovanni, and a biographical documentary on the film's director, Claude Sautet.