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For all the talk of the French New Wave, it’s worth noting that it was Claude Chabrol who was first to have his films grace the big screen. Le Beau Serge was the first movie released from the Cahiers du Cinema set, and it is not the thriller one might expect from Charbol – who later reinvented himself as a French Hitchcock, though that definition is too small for the director. His first two films – Le Beau Serge and Les Cousins, both starring Gérard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy, are now on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection, and our reviews follow after the jump. Le Beau Serge was born after Les Cousins, but was shot first. Blain is the titular Serge, the man who lives in a small French village with his pregnant wife (Michèle Méritz). Brialy is Francois, who left town and was living in Sweden recently because of what may be tuberculous.