SPOILERS galoreSo it's a lazy Sunday morning and I'm half asleep with the TV on and all of a sudden a new movie starts and I hear Melissa Manchester. That woke me up enough to see the opening credits to a movie called "The Promise". Starring Kathleen Quinlan, one of those actresses from the 70s and 80s that you'd recognize but wouldn't know her name. The movie starts and it's a montage of YOUNG LOVE. However, I was like "That's not Kathleen Quinlan is it? I thought she was prettier than that!" Well, I'll get to that in a bit. But she had these impossible buck teeth that she couldn't close her mouth or speak normally, a fake nose appliance, and a poorly fitting wig that looks like something from John Waters' Hairspray. Anyway, the story is this: Young love meets up against boy's domineering wealthy mother. The couple decides to elope anyway and on the way their 1976 BMW gets in a head on collision with a MAC truck. Boy gets banged up, and girl has her face destroyed. The evil mother makes a deal with girl that she will pay for her extensive plastic surgery so long as she never speaks to her son ever again. Okay... Mother tells her son that girl died in the wreck, and THIS is when the film gets unbelievable... Girl comes out of surgery looking like Kathleen Quinlan with a fashionable hairstyle and duds. ONE YEAR LATER the two lovebirds randomly meet up and he doesn't recognize her! (I was constantly wondering why he just randomly accepted her death without trying to find her gravesite or a death certificate, but I was thinking too much, not a good thing for this movie). Anyway, yada yada yada, in a "An Affair to Remember" throwback, he realizes that she is actually his love that he made "The Promise" to that he would never say goodbye (they kept playing that song over and over and over that I started getting annoyed by it). The ending is that they get back together and kiss, and goddangit my eyes started watering. I'm cynical as hell, but dang I am easy prey for a schlocky, impossibly manipulative chick flick. I made it through the entire film, so that's worth 5 out of ten.My complaints: Basically the film is so implausible and unrealistic that you really have to suspend disbelief to a level not known before to swallow this one. Bladerunner is more realistic. But here's the thing, loverboy did not recognize his lovergirl after only one year! She had plastic surgery, but she didn't have a personality transplant too! I mean, come on, if I got into a disastrous accident and had plastic surgery, I would expect my partner to recognize me with a new nose, teeth, and hairdo. I still have the same eyes, voice, mannerisms, and well, everything that makes me me. Anyway, don't try to overthink this one. It really could work in a campy way, and having Melissa Manchester belting out every now and then is a hoot. Her voice is special, but at the saddest and sweetest part of the film, her booming voice was shocking and distracting to the final scene. Melissa Manchester was to this song as Faye Dunaway was to Mommie Dearest, total overkill!!! Not worth your time unless you are trying to get out of bed and looking for a reason not to...

One of the best romantic movies ever made. I first watched it in 1979 when I was 14. Yeah it was cheesy then and it's even cheesier now but WOW what a great love story! Love is about overcoming! And man do these two characters overcome! Very few movies today connect with me like this one did! The beginning of the story is such a great set up of how in love Nancy and Michael really are....he's willing to give up his wealth and family for her. His mother, Marion is pure "evil" (Nancy/Marie's words) for trying to manipulate their lives. But I think in the end, Marion (after seeing her son's lonely existence)realizes what she's done and (to me) seems to almost push the two lovers back together by encouraging Nancy/Marie to accept her son's offer to work for the company. One of my favorite parts is when Michael sees the finished painting that Nancy had started but never got to finish because of the accident. Stephen Collins is such a great actor and is just spot on, capturing the emotion of Michael's realization that Marie Adamson is Nancy. And of course finally the ending when Michael has the necklace and confronts Nancy/Marie.....huh...oh so sappy but beautiful. Tears begin to flow. The only down side to the ending is the only thing Nancy could think to say is, "Michael" (in her Nancy voice) after Michaels pours out his heart to her. Sorta'anticlimactic.I loved it anyways and shared this movie with my kids when it came on cable. I just bought the DVD and will be watching it with my much younger co-workers so they can see what a good classic love story is about!

Young couple in New England, on their way to get hitched despite the groom-to-be's disapproving mama, are involved in a horrible car accident; the man lapses into a short coma, during which time his mother sends his disfigured girlfriend to the West Coast for extensive plastic surgery on her face--providing she never contact her fiancé again! Will they eventually cross paths, and will he recognize her if they do? Hard to believe anyone with any self-respect will care, especially after an excruciating opening: a lyrical montage of 'coupling' culminating in a love-pact made on a cliff overlooking the sea! After her triumphant performance in 1977's "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" failed to make her a star, Kathleen Quinlan probably saw this cornball venture as an opportunity to break into the big-time. Sad to say, it's an obvious throwback to the 'woman's weepies' of the 1940s, hopelessly out-of-date and out-of-touch. Quinlan spends the first 30 minutes of the picture in an ill-fitting wig, a false nose and funny teeth; still, she isn't changed THAT much after surgery! For the movie to work even on the most basic of levels, the audience is required to completely suspend their disbelief--whilst throwing logic and credibility out the window. Perhaps nimble handling, some self-effacing humor, or even a knowingly camp undermining might have saved the film. Alas, it takes itself far too seriously--and is far too strenuous--to be any fun. The performers (Stephen Collins, Beatrice Straight, and most especially Quinlan) are reduced to dummy-level, while a mind-boggling romantic song (Oscar-nominated!) wails away on the soundtrack. "The Promise" is best described as 'icky'. *1/2 from ****

Hope you got pancakes, 'cause here comes the syrup!"The Promise" is based on one of those '70s romance novels about perfect people in perfect lives where they have little else to do but be in love and have the world witness them make goo-goo eyes and kissy faces at each other. In other words, a "chick-flick".Now, these kind of movies can be made entertaining ("Sleepless in Seattle", "Love Story", "While You Were Sleeping") but they can also be made bad by substituting normal human emotions and brain activity with stereotypes, trite acting and stale dialogue. To say "The Promise" has all three is only the beginning.See if you can follow this: girl (Quinlan) loves boy (Collins), girl gets disfigured in car crash, boy thinks girl is dead, girl gets reconstructive surgery and hides from boy, boy finds girl with new face, girl hides true identity, boy falls in love with girls' new face but pines for girl he thinks is dead....Following the maze of cables behind your computer is easier than following the plot. No one uses common sense and everyone is an idiot in this script. If just one person would have had half an IQ point more in their skull the plot would be over in less than 10 minutes. This would play better as a spoof of "chick flicks" and come off far better than it does straight. In fact, watch it only to heckle the incessant stupidity or turn off the sound and make up your own dialogue - it makes it MUCH better.Quinlan and Collins have both done considerable better since this and most likely look back on this dark period in their lives with a deep sigh and shake of their head. Much like I do.Guys, "Promise" to avoid this like the plague. Girls...ah, never mind.No stars for "The Promise" (ten stars if you're Danielle Steele).