A new season of Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre’s Film Club
began with a not particular well-known French gangster film from 1960. The host
for the evening was our very own Brendan Kearney who opened the proceedings
with a short, but informative introduction.
Brendan informed the audience that the brilliance of Classe
tous risques (1960), known as The
Big Risk in America, was down to three men. Firstly the director Claude
Sautet, again not very well known outside his native France which is surprising
considering that he not only directed 15 films between 1951 and 1995 but also
was assistant director on 14 films including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face in 1959 and has 29
films to his credit as a screenwriter. The second big influence on the film was
Jose Giovanni a French/Swiss writer who’s novel Sautet adapted for the screen.
Giovanni was a former criminal who was sentenced to death in 1948 for his part
in the death of three people narrowly escaping the guillotine when his sentence
was commuted to twenty years of hard labour, released in 1956 he was pardoned
in 1986. Giovanni’s experiences in prison lead him to write a series of novels.
The first novel was published in 1957 and was called Le trou (The Hole). It
tells of the escape he attempted from prison with other inmates in 1947this was
also made into a film directed by Jacques Becker. While incarcerated he met a
vicious gangster called Abel Damos who was waiting a death sentence passed in
his absence during the years he spent as a fugitive in Italy with his wife and
sons. It was this character who inspired Giovanni to write a further book in
1958 called Classe tous risques
changing the main characters name to Abel Davos. The third person and probable
the most important is the movies leading man, Lino Ventura, an Italian who made
over 70 films in a 33 year period working with such world renowned directors as
Claude Lelouch, Jean-Pierre Melville, Gerard Pires, Vittorio De Sica and Louis
Malle to name but a few. Ventura was a big man, a wrestler as a youth and the
epitome of a French gangster, ideally cast as Abel Davos.
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| Lino Ventura, the epitome of a gangster. |
Davos know that
he cannot stop in Italy any longer, he is a wanted man and he knew its only
time before the Polizia catch up with him. Putting his wife Therese and two
boys on a train to get them across the French border, Abel and his partner
Raymond plan to rob a bank messenger in broad daylight and then drive to meet
wife and kids. But the robbery does not go to plan and the police are soon on
their trail engaging our fearless gangsters in a gun battle. Eventually meeting up with Therese and the
boys, Pierrot and Daniel, they hire a boat to get them to Nice. When they land
on the shore the local border petrol are laying in wait, another gun battle but
this time our travellers do not get away scot-free. Davos contacts his old
buddy’s in Paris to come and collect him but instead of coming them selves they
send a stranger in the form of Eric Stark which Davos takes as disrespect and
can’t wait to meet up with his so called comrades.
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| Abel Davos and Raymond. |
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| Davos with Eric Stark. |
Also featured
in this movie is an early appearance by Jean-Paul Belmondo whose next film A bout de soufflé (1960) was to make him
one of the biggest icon’s in French cinema and one of the actors most closely
associated with its New Wave. Ironically enough it was this film that kept Classe tous risques off of the French
cinema screens at that time. Italian actress Sandra Milo, who is probably best
known for her award winning appearances in two of Fellini’s best known films,
plays Liliane, Eric Starks love interest. Davos friend and partner in crime
Raymond is played by Stan Krol[1]
another tough looking gangster type who shared a prison cell with Giovanni.
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| Sandra Milo plays Starks love interest. |
This black and
white gangster movie has been re-released as part of a BFI season of films
dedicated to its director and as usual the RBC has given its audience a chance
to see a rare provincial screening of this absorbing thriller something most local
filmgoers may not ever get the chance to see on a big screen. It’s an action
movie with minimal dialogue and strong themes of friendship and betrayal.
Nothing as ‘glamorous’ as today’s
Hollywood gangster movie, more like the Hollywood genre, which was given a
French name Film Noir whose heyday lasted from the early 40’s to the late 50’s
and is still held in high esteem. The added
dimension of the two young boys, the superb character studies of the main characters,
the location shooting in Milan, Nice and Paris and the on screen presence of
Lino Ventura makes this one of the highlights of French cinema of that period
and stands up extremely well against such classics as Bande
a part (1964) and Lift
to the Scaffold (1958) as well as afore mentioned A bout de soufflé.
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| No one disrepects Abel Davos! |
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