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In the last line of my review of CLASSE TOUS RISQUES (the first I ever published) I wrote, “Some patronizing people think it is a B film, but a B like Boetticher is better than a A like Allegret” (un B comme Boetticher vaut mieux qu’un A comme Allegret).
CLASSE TOUS RISQUES is not a B film. It is one of the best French gangster films, tense and warm, elliptical and human, which revealed Jean-Paul Belmondo before Breathless (the way he delivers with a touching smile “ce que j’ai de bien c’est mon gauche”* is unforgettable). Based on a very good book by José Giovanni (whose other books and screenplays include Becker’s Le Trou and Melville’s Le Deuxieme Souffle), it is also a beautiful friendship story with Hawksian undertones. I have never forgotten the superb opening of the film, the very moving first voiceover, the beautifully filmed robbery (which even impressed Robert Bresson), the abrupt, unsentimental and poignant ending. And in between many original and inspired moments: a meeting in a church, the relationship between Lino Ventura and a little maid which really deal, beyond the rules of the genre, with “les choses de la vie.” -- Bertrand Tavernier
*The nicest thing about me is my left.