The story: On the run, convicted criminal Abel Davos must hide from the law in Paris with his two sons. What will Abel do and where can he go? Will his sons ever be able to live a normal life? Tune in to find out.

“Classe Tous Risques” is a film noir story that never quite reaches its full potential. Sure, the superbly shot fast paced chase sequence in the opening 15 minutes perfectly summed up Abel’s danger and paranoia filled life, but that’s really all the film had going for it. Instead of exploring some of the film’s more intriguing dynamics, such as the impact that Abel’s life (and his wife’s death) had on his children, we get lots of scenes with characters yakking and even a forced romantic tale between the characters of Eric and Liliane. In fact, the entire time I was watching ‘Classe,’ I always felt like we weren’t seeing the big picture, but rather a snippet of the story. This was never more evident then when the cheap and abrupt ending came around in which we learn that Abel was caught by the authorities via a lousy voice over. It would have been nice to actually SEE him get caught.

The 1.66:1 widescreen picture was slightly grainy, but the B&W transfer was generally pretty stunning. Another job well done Criterion.

The Dolby Digital Mono audio track was typical. You can’t really expect much from a Mono track.

Extras:

* 2 trailers.

* “Lino Ventura” on his career and “Classe Tous Risques.” These are two old school interviews in which the actor chats about the characters he played, his life, his film work, and even sports. These two extras run 14 minutes total.

* A featurette on Jose Giovanni (12:00)- The novelist/screenwriter talks about gangsters, his story, the director, actors and how he met the real Abel Davos on death row. Jose certainly led one interesting life.

* A quick 8 minute featurette titled “Claude Sautet Ou La Magie Invisible.” This featurette looks at his personal life and career and contains several interviews.