Despite its obvious merits, Claude Sautet’s feature directorial debut, Classe tous risques, didn’t jump-start his career in the manner in which it probably should. A low-key, intimate portrait of a former gang leader trying to evade capture, it is a thoughtful character study of a dangerous man struggling to maintain his freedom and feeling the increasing weight of the price paid by those around him. It is, by all measures, a highly accomplished film with a deft sense of character and location, but it was largely overshadowed by the emerging French New Wave, whose vocal critics-turned-directors naturally stole the spotlight. Sautet even lost out on getting credit for introducing the world to Jean-Paul Belmondo, since Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless premiered a month earlier. Nevertheless, it’s a film worth seeing, even if it doesn’t quite measure up to the truly great Gallic crime films of the ’60s. (DVD)