Christian Ferry Movies

The writing/directing brother team of Joshua and Jeffrey Crook are responsible for the crude comedy The Fittest, aimed squarely at the overserved audience of white males aged 18-25. Family man Freddy (Jason Madera) and his wife (Angela Grant) live in the suburbs with no kids. However, he manages to get his boss' girlfriend (Christina Caparoula) pregnant. When she decides to have an abortion, he ties her up in the basement, apparently for the purposes of comedy. The Fittest was shown at the 2003 CineVegas Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Olivier, the nine-year-old son of a country veterinarian, vanishes one afternoon on the way to his grandmother's house. The emotional aftermath of his disappearance sends his father packing from France to Africa and nearly destroys his mother, who clings to her remaining child, Nadine, and her devoted neighbor, Marcel. Several years later, having relocated to the city, the police investigator who handled the case meets a Paris rent boy whom he believes to be the missing Olivier. Once he returns to his rural home, the teenaged Olivier tries to assuage his mother's now-entrenched grief and heal the rift between his reunited parents. Meanwhile, he must overcome his brooding, adolescent sister's jealousy and doubts about his identity and reconcile his sleazy street life with his picturesque new surroundings. Questions about the tight-lipped Olivier's true motivations continue to crop up, however, threatening to send his mother over the edge for good. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Gaspard Manesse plays Julien, an 11-year-old Catholic boarding-school resident during the Nazi occupation of France. He is witness to the courage of his instructors, who defy the German's anti-Semitic policies and quietly enroll Jewish children into the school under assumed names. Manesse befriends Jean (Raphael Fejto), one of these "instant Catholics." The refugee children are betrayed by a hostile ex-employee of the school, forcing Julien once more to be a bystander to history as Jean and the teachers are arrested. For this return to the French film industry after several years in the US, Louis Malle purged himself of his own bitter memories of life under the thumbs of the Nazis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the famous comic strip, Sheena chronicles the adventures of the title character (Tanya Roberts), a fair-skinned orphan taken in by a kindly Zambouli priestess (Elizabeth of Toro, a real-life African queen) in a remote African village and trained in the ancient arts of makeup and hairstyling. When American newsmen Fletcher (Donovan Scott) and Vic (Ted Wass) travel to her homeland to cover a story on Prince Otwani (Trevor Thomas), they uncover his plot to assassinate his brother, the reigning prince (a renowned field-goal kicker), and frame the priestess for the crime. Sheena joins forces with the newsmen to stop him and restore order to the country. Although Roberts looks great in a loincloth, her assets alone cannot save this turkey; one wonders where the jungle princess manages to plug in her blow-dryer. This ridiculous film was panned across the board upon its release and subsequently bombed. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

Three workers in a social services office on Christmas Eve find themselves the center of a vortex of rag-tag humanity that all need their professional help, and more. Their visit from Santa Claus does not involve a trip down a chimney, but a walk-in by a somewhat derelict, irascible St. Nick hunting for the unfortunate Mrs. Nick, whose girth is wider than her husband's because she's carrying the future little Nick or Nicola -- she also has a sack, given that she is a bag lady, and she herself is in need of an orthodontist. This unusual couple is complemented by other characters in need of assistance, including a woefully abject transvestite and one character who no longer needs assistance because corpses are pretty much beyond help. Events conspire to bring everyone to the zoo, a fitting place for the cast of eccentrics, social workers not excluded. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Marie (Marthe Keller) is the most beautiful girl in her small village. She enters a beauty contest in a nearby town and wins the top prize. Broderick (Bert Convey) is the young American businessman who falls in love with the newly crowned beauty queen. She agrees to marry him but states she cannot leave her village behind her. He buys the entire village and moves them all to a small island near Manhattan. Try as they may, the simple villagers cannot adjust to the turbulence of the big city with the Statue of Liberty always looming in the background. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This war-drama centers more on the effects of battle on civilians than it does on the bravery of the fighters as it tells the story of a courageous squadron of Yankee soldiers endeavoring to protect and bring to safety a village full of French civilians whom they saved from German captors following the Allied invasion of Normandy. During the battle to free them, the soldiers also capture a German officer. They then begin heading toward the beach with the civilians so they can go to England. Unfortunately, the beachmaster does not know they are coming and regretfully sends them back. Twice more the squadron and the civilians go back to the beach, but they are still not allowed to go. Things get even worse when the Germans begin bombing the remains of their town and they are forced to find some place to hide until help arrives. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In Nicholas Ray's WWII drama, two British officers, Captain Leith (Richard Burton) and Major Brand (German character actor Curd Jürgens, who would later play Bond foe Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me), a South African, are being considered to lead a daring raid to steal crucial documents from a Nazi stronghold in Libya. The two don't seem particularly fond of each other. Brand's wife, Jane (Ruth Roman of Strangers on a Train), arrives on the base. There's an odd awkwardness when Brand introduces her to Leith at the officers' club. It turns out the two already know each other, intimately. They were romantically involved long ago, until Leith broke it off without warning. Jane later met Brand. Leith and Jane keep their relationship a secret from Brand, but he realizes something's up when he goes out for a bit and comes back to find them dancing together. He later gets angry when his wife slips up and refers to Leith as "Jimmy." Brand and Leith are chosen to lead the mission together. Jane says goodbye to Leith, and Wilkins (Nigel Green of The Ipcress File) and some other soldiers see them together. The raid goes fairly smoothly, until Brand can't bring himself to kill a German sentry, and Leith feels compelled to step in and do it for him. Brand's resentment of Leith grows. The team steals the documents and heads out across the desert to make their escape. They're attacked by a German patrol, and after the melee, Brand arouses suspicious when he orders Leith to stay with three badly wounded soldiers while the rest of the group leaves for the rendezvous point. Bitter Victory is based on the novel by René Hardy. Jean-Luc Godard famously said of the film in his review, "Nicholas Ray is cinema." ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide