Classe Tous Risques (1960)

Director: Claude Sautet
Country: France

A ruined criminal looking for help is trying to escape with his family and children from Milan to Paris after many years of criminal activities but a death sentence is waiting for him. Lino Ventura is Abel Davos, a cold-blooded crook, a decaying mafioso, but a tough mothefucker who once was a respected guy in the underworld, and a kind of "godfather" for some of his friends who now disrespect him, and this film is precisely about respect, loyalty, honor, friendship and betrayal and by no means idealistic gangster bullshit. 

We can see the human side of Abel Davos as a father, a husband a friend and struggling moments in his life which make him think he's a kind of King Midas in reverse. A young Jean-Paul Belmondo as Eric Stark in the pivotal role is very solid too, not to mention Sandra Milo (Eric's girlfriend) was stunning and gorgeous at the time. 

The film was adapted from a novel by Jose Giovanni (an auteur, a great writer who also wrote works like "Le Trou" and "Le Deuxiemme Souffle", which later became cinema masterpieces), Sautet made a great job, basically he just needed a car, two main characters and some pistols to make a great storyline, he also made a precise usage of the voice over, the silence, the dialogue, the editing and some shots from the car's point of view. 

These kind of films were the foundation for future crime films (like those of Jean-Pierre Melville) and we can see how iconic characters in American TV Series like The Sopranos were influenced by all those French crime-noir films as well, Classe Tous Risques is unfortunately an underrated masterpiece.