Classe tous risques

Classe tous risques, a 1960 French-Italian gangster picture directed by Claude Sautet, adapts José Giovanni's novel of the same title, with Giovanni, Sautet and Pascal Jardin sharing screenplay credit. Lino Ventura plays Abel Davos, a French mobster living as a fugitive with his family, who attempts to slip back into France from Italy while the police close in. Reaching Paris by way of Marseille, Davos discovers that his former underworld associates, timid and faithless, refuse to lift a finger for him. The one man willing to stand by him is Eric Stark, a young criminal he has only just met, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo. Sandra Milo co-stars. Released in the United States as The Big Risk, the film was initially eclipsed by the French New Wave, yet it later came to be regarded as a masterpiece and influenced the work of Jean-Pierre Melville.