Mel Ferrer Movies

Based on a true story, this film follows the life of John Baptist de La Salle, a wealthy priest, who dedicated his life to ensuring that all children, regardless of class, received an education. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

Wait Until Dark is an innovative, highly entertaining and suspenseful thriller about a blind housewife, Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn). Independent and resourceful, Susy is learning to cope with her blindness, which resulted from a recent accident. She is aided by her difficult, slightly unreliable young neighbor Gloria (Julie Herrod) with whom she has an exasperated but lovingly maternal relationship. Susy's life is changed as she is terrorized by a group of criminals who believe she has hidden a baby doll used by them to smuggle heroin into the country. Unknown to Susy, her photographer husband Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) took the doll as a favor for a woman he met on an international plane flight and unwittingly brought the doll to the couple's New York apartment when the woman became afraid of the customs officials. Alone in her apartment and cut-off from the outside world, Susy must fight for her life against a gang of ruthless criminals, led by the violent, psychotic Roat (Alan Arkin). The tension builds as Roat, aided by his gang, impersonates police officers and friends of her husband in order to win Susy's confidence, gaining access to her apartment to look for the doll. The climax of the film, a violent physical confrontation between Susie and Roat in her dark kitchen, is one of the most memorable and frightening scenes in screen history. All performances are outstanding, particularly those of Audrey Hepburn who plays a vulnerable, but self-reliant woman, and Alan Arkin, in perhaps his best role, as the ruthless, manipulative Roat. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

Vendetta began as a pet project of producer/director/writer Preston Sturges. Producer Howard R. Hughes was at first enthusiastic about the project, but lost interest after a bitter argument with Sturges. Director Max Ophuls was originally slated to direct, but Hughes lost interest in him and hired Mel Ferrer instead. Eventually, Hughes decided to make the film anyway, primarily to introduce his latest protégé, Faith Domergue. The film sat on the shelf for four years before Hughes finally released it through RKO. The story begins in old New Orleans, where hot-blooded Corsican maiden Colomba (Faith Domergue) coerces her brother Orso (George Dolenz) into avenging their father's murder. There follows a series of labyrinthine plot twists, leading to a corpse-strewn denouement. Hillary Brooke co-stars as British gentlewoman Lydia Nevil, with whom Orso has a brief romance before sacrificing love for honor. The screenplay, which was credited to W.R. Burnett after several other writers had a crack at it, was based on Colomba, a novel by Prosper Merimee. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

There's a curious, unsettling "feel" to MGM's The Vintage, perhaps because of its curiously selected cast. Mel Ferrer and John Kerr play a couple of Italian brothers, Giancarlo and Ernesto Barandero, who escape to France after Ernesto kills a man. Attaining jobs in a vineyard run by Louis Morel (played by the decidedly non-Gallic Leif Erickson), the Barandero brothers fall in love with two local lasses: Leonne (Michele Morgan), Monel's young wife, and Lucienne (top-billed Pier Angeli), Leonne's kid sister. Emotions simmer into a boil before the predictably violent climax. The Vintage was adapted from an Ursula Kier novel by Michael Blankfort, a blacklistee compelled to work in Europe during the late 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When it was first telecast on November 23, 1986, the made-for-TV Thanksgiving Promise (based on a novel by Blaine and Brenton Yorgason) was advertised as "A Thanksgiving Story as Only Disney Can Tell It." Actually, the film might not have come to fruition at all without the input of the Bridges family: Lloyd, Beau, Lloyd's wife Dorothy, Beau's son Jordan, and Jeff Bridges (uncredited). Jordan Bridges is the central character, a farm boy living in the shadow of his older brothers. Jordan's neighbor (Lloyd) entrusts the boy with a man-sized job: To care for a wounded gosling and fatten up the bird for Thanksgiving dinner. Inevitably, Jordan becomes attached to the bird, and as Thanksgiving approaches, he takes a series of odd jobs, hoping to buy the goose from his neighbor. But Jordan's father (Beau) insists that the boy keep his word and relinquish the goose. In addition to his costarring chores in Thanksgiving Promise, Beau Bridges coproduced and directed the film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Secret Fury works best if one is willing to suspend one's disbelief from the outset. Claudette Colbert stars as Ellen, a famed concert pianist who, on the day of her wedding, is accosted by a stranger who insists that she's already married to someone else. Ellen is willing to laugh this off, until the stranger produces witnesses, records and the justice of the piece. Has Ellen lost her mind, or is she merely the victim of an elaborate scam. With the help of fiancé David (Robert Ryan), Our Heroine begins her own investigation -- and ends up accused of murder and shunted off to a mental institution. And the story isn't over yet! Featured in a pivotal role is future I Love Lucy co-star Vivian Vance, who'd previously worked in an L.A. theatre company with Secret Fury-director Mel Ferrer. For reasons best known to himself, Willard Parker, a fairly well-known film actor in 1950, appears unbilled. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When his father does not return from the Norse colony in Vinland (Greenland) for years and years, warrior son Thorvald (Lee Majors) organizes an expedition to find him. He and his co-commander Ragnar (Cornel Wilde) arrive and swiftly discover that King Eurich (Mel Ferrer) and his company were abducted by Native Americans and taken to neighboring lands. With the help of a friendly tribal princess, and the comical assistance of the Norse shaman "Death Dreamer" (Jack Elam), Thorvald is able to locate and battle the tribesmen for the life of his father. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Donald A. Stanwood's original novel The Memory of Eva Ryker used the Titanic tragedy as its launching pad. This made-for-TV adaptation of Stanwood's book moved the action up some 27 years, motivating its plotline with the torpedoing of an Athenia-type luxury liner in 1939. The film flashes forward to 1961: millionaire Ralph Bellamy, who lost his wife when the ship went down, hires writer Robert Foxworth (a discredited ex-cop) to investigate the sinking. Bellamy's grown daughter Natalie Wood, who'd survived the ordeal, seems to hold the secret, but she's been in a near-lunatic state for over twenty years. When several other survivors of the sinking are murdered, it becomes all the more crucial to unlock Wood's pent-up memories. In the tradition of Brian De Palma's Obsession (75), Natalie Wood not only plays the title role of Eva Ryker, but also Eva's ill-fated mother. The Memory of Eva Ryker was produced by "master of disaster" Irwin Allen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When a German outpost is devastated in World War II, a Nazi commandant holds 30 innocent people hostage to get the saboteur to come forward. ~ Rovi

The Fugitive was shot on location in Mexico by that country's premiere cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa. Henry Fonda plays a Christ-like priest in an unnamed Latin-American country where religion has been outlawed. Though incognito in a backwater village, Fonda cannot help but seem more spiritual and mystical than those around him. Meanwhile, another fugitive, homicidal-bandit Ward Bond, stumbles into the village. Bond and the beautiful Dolores del Rio, whose illegitimate child has been secretly baptized by Fonda, conspire to help the priest escape. Once Fonda is on safe ground, he is implored by police spy J. Carroll Naish to return to the village, ostensibly because Bond is dying and wishes to have last rites. Fonda is captured and sentenced to death, but is willing to forgive the repentant Naish for betraying him. The priest dies a martyr, and the outpouring of public grief proves to the authorities that simply outlawing religion will never subjugate the hearts and minds of the people. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though Fall of the Roman Empire is now infamous as the epic which destroyed the cinematic "empire" of producer Samuel Bronston, the film is actually an above-average historical drama, attempting to make sense of the political intrigues which resulted in the dissolution of the Glory That Was Rome. The film begins with wise, diplomatic emperor Marcus Aurelius (Alec Guinness) calling together the various representatives of the many nations within the Empire as a means of securing peace and prosperity for all involved. When Marcus intimates that he intends to turn over his crown to adopted son Livius (Stephen Boyd) rather than the logical successor Commodus (Christopher Plummer), he is poisoned by one of Commodus' cronies. Marcus' daughter Lucilla (Sophia Loren) tries to get Livius to claim the throne, but he wants no part of it; thus, the fate of the empire is in the incompetent hands of the preening Commodus. Despite efforts by cooler heads to save Rome from ruin, Commodus vainly declares himself a god and kills anyone who poses a threat to him. When he learns that Lucilla actually has a stronger claim to the throne than he does, Commodus condemns her to be burned at the stake. Only then does Livius intervene, slaying Commodus and promising to try to pick up the pieces of the disintegrating empire. Attempting to find a common ground between history buffs and action fans, Fall of the Roman Empire has come to be regarded as a classic. Alas, audiences in 1964 had grown weary of epics (especially after the highly touted but disappointing Cleopatra), and failed to turn out in sufficient enough numbers to justify Fall's exorbitant cost. Virtually wiped out, Samuel Bronston would not be able to return to filmmaking until 1971, and then only on a much smaller and more pinchpenny scale. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this failed pilot for a series, a biochemist reproduces. He copies himself 13 times to help stop a top-secret cloning project from being destroyed. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi