64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Danielle Steele's Best Book For A Movie!, July 8, 2000
This review is from: The Promise [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I believe this was the first of Danielle Steele's books that became a movie, and there hasn't been another quite like it since.
The Promise is the story of a rich young college man (Steven Collins) who falls in love with a poor painter (Kathleen Quinlan). When his mother finds out that he wants to marry this girl, the mother runs an investigative report on the girl to get all the dirt she can get on her. But the son is only angry with his mother, because the girl's past before she was born doesn't matter to him. He loves her.
He calls her on the phone and asks her to marry him. He then goes and gets his best friend to be his best man at the justice of the peace and then they, in turn go get Nancy, the painter.
While on their way to get married, there is a terrible automobile crash, which lands all three of them in the hospital. The car crash was a great work of cinemetography and Nancy's entire body was half-way in the front seat, half out the front dash window.
When Steven Collins wakes up he finds out that his friend was released from the hospital with hardly a scratch. He asks his mother about Nancy. He does not know that the mother made a deal with the girl that if the mother got the girl's face fixed (which was totally destroyed by the car crash) and the mother would pay in excess of a hundred thousand dollars, that the girl would no longer see her son. So the deal was made and the mother tells her son that the girl did not make it.
Over the next year or so, the girl's face is restructured and Kathleen Quinlan looked beautiful. She changed her name to Marie Adams and went on to be a famous photographer who still painted. It was at one of her art shows that her boyfriend's best friend sees her work. He tells her, because he does not recognize her, that his friend has a building in California and they would like to buy her artwork to put in this building.
Of course, she recognized the friend, so she turns him down. He can't understand why she would turn down so generous an offer. He goes and tells his friend about this great artist named Marie Adams that will not sell her art to him.
So Steven Collins goes to see her work and her, and he feels like they've met, but he does not get the connection of her being Nancy. After all, his mean old mother told him Nancy was dead.
The story progresses nicely and they find each other again at a place in Boston where they hid a costume necklace in the ground. She is trying to find the necklace but he has it. He now knew who she was because he saw a painting she had not finished before the accident, which was hanging completed on another man's wall.
"You can't have this necklace. It belonged to a friend of mine. A friend I was told had died over a year ago in a car crash."
Then Nancy knew what the man's mother had done.
Don't you just LOVE happy endings?
If you have not seen this movie, you should buy it. It is not real expensive and it's great viewing on TV. I have one on my wish list.
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A movie full of promise., March 24, 2000
This review is from: The Promise [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Combing the entire city of Wilmington for a video rental store which carried a copy of The Promise was not an easy task, but after finally watching it, I knew that my quest had been a total success. This movie will always remain one of my most favored movies. Kathleen Quinlan and Stephen Collins play two lovers who plan to get married, even after Collin's mother expresses her detestment of the union. While on the way to getting married, the two are in a tragic wreck, leaving Collins in a coma and Quinlan with a series of horrid facial scars which cannot be removed unless by plastic surgery. Collin's mother plays her key part at this point, offering her money to pay for Quinlan's surgery if she will leave town and never try to contact Collins again. This is one of those classic love stories where you actually root for the two lovers to get back together, and an antagonist whom you totally despise. The settings, plot, and locations for this movie unfold like a great canvas, and the acting is what truly paints each detail for this mosaic of storytelling. This movie is no disappointment; it is a masterpiece, one for all to see. I hope to see this movie soon arriving on DVD, as its aspect ratio is 2.35:1.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This one will eagage your emotions., February 10, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Promise [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I first saw this movie on TV about 15 years ago. It has haunted me ever since, in part because of the story itself, and in part because the editors bungled their job and nearly destroyed what could have been a truely great film. What they gave us instead is a good film with a great storyline. It is that story, along with the acting ability of Kathleen Quinlan and Steven Collins, that saves the film. If you have not read Danielle Steele's adaptation of the original screen play, do so. It will fill in some of the answers to the questions left open by the insensitivity of the film's editors.
This is a love story, and a good one about two individuals whose love for each other is pure and true and ultimately stands the test of both time and tradegy. If that makes it syrup, then so be it. I like it. I wish I could get a DVD edition of this movie.
A movie does not have to be full of vulgar language and gratuitous sex to be good; it doesn't have to be filled with blood and guts and action sequences; and thank God this one has none of the above. Without resorting to the seamer side of life, this story will engage your emotions and embed itself in your mind and your soul, leaving an impression that can last a lifetime. This alone is enough to make it a movie worth two hours of your time. Try it! You'll like it!
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