'Classe Tous Risques' reveals a star in the making

Winning, Vince Lombardi used to say, isn't everything. It's the only thing.

The same might be said for timing.

In 1960, Jean-Paul Belmondo made two movies. One was Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless," a clarion call announcing the French new wave that left moviegoers around the world a little, well, breathless.

Rialto Pictures 'Classe Tous Risques' B The verdict: Good genre movie, great opportunity to see a pre-"Breathless" Jean-Paul Belmondo. Director: Claude Sautet Starring: Lino Ventura, Sandra Milo, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marcel Dalio, Jacques Dacqmine Run time: 103 minutes Original release: 1960 Rating: Not rated but there are disturbing scenes of gangster violence. Language: French with subtitles. On the web Official movie site Rate 'Classe Tous Risques'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

The other was Claude Sautet's "Classe Tous Risques" (roughly translated, something to do with insurance policies), a classic old school genre film about honor — or perhaps more accurately, dishonor — among thieves.

The former became a phenomenon and made Belmondo an international star. The latter, retitled "The Big Risk," was badly dubbed and briefly dumped into American theaters.

More than four decades later, its time finally has come. Rereleased with new subtitles and in a restored black-and-white print, "Classe Tous Risques" is a pungent gangster film with a prescient "The Sopranos" subtext. Like Tony, Abel Davos (beautifully played by beefy ex-wrestler Lino Ventura) is a family man who occasionally kills people. A world-weary veteran of the criminal underworld in Paris, he's lived with his wife and two sons in Italy for the past decade. Now he wants to come home and settle down. It's not as easy as it sounds. A few car chases, robberies, shootouts and corpses later, he finds himself stranded in Nice.

When he contacts his old pals — most of whom owe him a favor and many of whom have now gone some version of legit — they dispatch a kid named Eric Stark (Belmondo) to fetch him in a second-hand ambulance. The insult doesn't go unnoticed. Even at this stage in his life, Abel is someone you insult at your peril.

The relationship between Abel, weighted down with scores to settle and regrets, and Eric, lithe and unexpectedly loyal to the older man, is the crux of the movie. It's a tough-guy love story of sorts. And the ending is as blunt as a punch in the face.

"Classe Tous Risques" doesn't quite rate lost-classic status, but it's done with a great deal of dexterity, intelligence and an appealing end-of-'50s cool. What makes it especially worth seeking out is the chance to watch Belmondo become Belmondo. It remained for Godard to film him right, to put him in the right clothes, to bring out the scampish bad-boy attitude and his to-swoon-for battered profile.

But in Sautet's picture, we see a kind of early prototype come together bit by bit. At first, he looks boyish and fresh-faced, all soft corners, nothing intriguing. Adorable, of course, but obvious.

But then he dangles a cigarette from his lips. And then he trades a silly plaid coat for a trench. And then he tosses a raffish grin at a little old lady by the elevator as he and his girlfriend (Sandra Milo, who would be ready for her close-up three years later in "8 1/2") head for his room. And slowly his youthful opaqueness becomes more complex, more shadowed. By the end, he's still a good-looking kid with matinee-idol potential, but something's been hinted at — something that soon would make him one of the most sought-after actors of the next two decades.