Keeping the Promise (1997 TV Movie) User Reviews

The micro-budget sequel to "Last of the Mohicans" (not really, but sort of)

[Wuchakk · 6/10 · 20 April 2015]

Released in 1997, "The Sign of the Beaver" (aka "Keeping the Promise") stars Keith Carradine and Annette O'Toole as a couple who decide to move from Massachusetts to the wilderness of Maine about eight years after the French and Indian War in the 18th century. After building a small cabin in Maine, the father leaves his 13 year-old son (Brendan Fletcher) behind while he goes back to get the rest. As the family experiences hardships traveling to the cabin, the boy faces challenges with dubious frontiersmen and Natives alike. Gordon Tootoosis plays Sakniss and Maury Chaykin plays Loomis.

The story takes place in the Northeast not long after the events of 1992's "The Last of the Mohicans," but it naturally lacks the spit and polish of that major production. The good news is that most of the principles offer great performances despite the limitations of the production. For instance, O'Toole, Carradine, Fletcher and Tootoosis do quality work here, especially the first two. The worst acting comes from Chaykin during the bear trap sequence. The score's great and the locations/sets/costumes are good, although the clothes sometimes look too new and colorful.

To enjoy a movie like this you have to accept its low-budget limitations, like the bad acting noted above or the too-nice cabin interiors or some of the artificial-looking winter scenes at the end. If you can overlook these weaknesses and you appreciate frontier-oriented stories, this is a worthwhile movie. While touted as a "family" movie and G-rated, it's in some ways more hardcore and horrifying than most R-rated horror flicks because the struggles the people face really happened in that era. For instance, there's a death/grieving/venting scene that's potent. The screenplay was based on the children's historical novel by Elizabeth George Speare, but it contains adult-oriented elements. In other words, it's not just for kids. It's G-rated, but don't expect Disney.

The film runs 95 minutes and was shot in Ontario.

GRADE: B-

Good family movie!

[yuengling215 · 7/10 · 7 April 2018]

Good family movie! This movie is a great movie for kids and also has a good storyline to go along with it... There is a good lesson to be learned along with the story.

An Enjoyable Family Movie

[rydadad · 7/10 · 9 March 2010]

This was a fine family movie. The characters were full and compelling, the story was believable, and the film was uplifting and positive. The soundtrack was also excellent. While some have offered critical reviews citing authenticity issues (clothing not sufficiently soiled to be realistic, non-period word use, etc), I found these elements to be superficial in nature. Movies are forever offering "sanitized" views (i.e., actors hair is never mussed, facial bruising from fights is gone the next day--or never appears at all!), etc. I would hate to see people miss out on a thoroughly enjoyable movie for such extraneous concerns. I very much recommend this film for viewers of all ages.

Well-meaning but rather wan

[mfisher452 · 2 July 2002]

An admirable attempt to make a meaningful film about people struggling with real, life-or-death problems, and based on "The Sign Of The Beaver," a well-regarded children's novel. The scene in which the mother (Annette O'Toole) realizes that her child, whom she is cradling in her arms, has just died, is heart-wrenching, because you know that as rare as it has become in modern-day First World countries, it has happened millions of times in human history and probably still happens quite often in some places today.

However, the film suffers from being sanitized for modern TV audiences. Nobody was that clean in colonial times. And with few exceptions, the actors fail to convince that they are playing real people instead of performing for the camera in a Meaningful Period Piece. Also, I recall several glaring anachronisms that ought to have been picked up by any competent script editor and distract from the attempt at realism, as when Matthew says, "I tell you, I'm OKAY." (Emphasis added) According to the Oxford English Dictionary, that famous Americanism was not recorded in print until 1840.

Read the book!

[ginnam68 · 4/10 · 19 July 2012]

After having used this book for many years as a fourth grade teacher, I finally saw the movie. My students loved that it took place right here in Maine before it was a state. I found the movie really disappointing! The book is wonderful, but so much in the movie is changed. Matthew's survival in Maine inspired many students, and made them eager to read other 'survival books'. This movie's treatment of Matthew's development seems superficial. Attean never talks about his disdain for Robinson Crusoe's treatment of the man Friday, and that was very important. I probably would have enjoyed the movie more had I not read the book! If it makes anyone who watches it interested in reading the book, then I guess it was worth it.

Sensitive and intelligent period piece

[williamj-2 · 10/10 · 8 August 1999]

Based on the children's novel, 'Sign Of The Beaver', this is a sensitive and intelligent period piece, for the most part underplayed - a style which lends the movie a ring of authenticity. The cast is excellent, but the movie belongs to the young Canadian Brendan Fletcher as Matt Hallowell, surviving alone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. There are several particularly moving scenes, carried by Fletcher's appealing screen presence. Surely he is a big star of the future. There is also a heart-rending performance from Annette O'Toole as the much-enduring mother with a catch in her throat that could melt the stoniest heart. I don't wish to give the impression this is mawkish or sentimental in any way, it isn't, but what keeps me going back to it as well as Brendan Fletcher's performance, is the soundtrack, which is haunting and evocative and, alas, not available commercially!

You can't have everything

[Jalow547 · 4/10 · 26 August 2016]

I watched Keeping the Promise when I was in the fifth grade, just a few months after having read the novel on which it was based. The novel was provided to me, along with the rest of my classmates, in the form of 8½" x 11" packets, fresh from the Xerox machine. We'd get a handful of pages each weak, neatly stapled in the upper left-hand corner, and then break out into our assigned reading groups and take turns reading the story aloud to each other.

I was in the "slow readers" group, which consisted of the dumbest third of the class. I wasn't stupid and I wasn't even a slow reader, but I did have a pretty severe speech impediment, which is apparently why I was put into that group. It wasn't a stutter and didn't slow down my reading at all; it just made me difficult to understand, but putting me in with the slow readers didn't help anything. The teacher's aide—who was assigned to make sure my group didn't goof off during our reading time—even recommended to the teacher that I be moved to one of the more advanced reading groups, but the teacher rejected that notion. It was fine with me, as I preferred the slow readers to the bunch of nerds in the top third of the class. I think the middle group would have been the best. That's where all the normal kids were. But you can't have everything, I suppose.

At the end of the school year, on the very last day, the entire fifth grade was going to have a pizza party to celebrate our graduation from elementary school. We would eat pizza and watch movies in two of the three fifth-grade classrooms, with the third classroom going unused. I was in Mrs. Jacobs' class and the movies were to be shown in Mr. Boyd's and Mrs. Barrett's classrooms. It was well-known that Mr. Boyd was the cool teacher and Mrs. Barrett was the opposite of that. This was confirmed in the weeks prior to the planned event when rumors began circulating on the playground and in the school bus that the party in Mr. Boyd's classroom would be vastly different than the one in Mrs. Barrett's classroom, and would include lots of candy, ice cream, silly string, games, a piñata, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and an overall pleasant atmosphere, while Mrs. Barrett's party would consist of cheese-pizza only in a strict no-talking/no-yawning environment that felt more like prison than a classroom.

Each student was allowed to choose for themselves which event they wanted to attend, and we were all formally asked to declare our wishes one week before the date. Naturally, nearly everyone said they wanted to go to Mr. Boyd's classroom. But that must have made Mrs. Barrett feel pretty bad, because the teachers came back and said we weren't allowed to pick the classroom we wanted to go to, but could only pick which of the two movies we wanted to see.

Once again, rumors circulated, leading us all to believe that Keeping the Promise would be shown in Mr. Boyd's classroom, while Mrs. Barrett would be showing something else that I can't remember the name of. So I chose to see Keeping the Promise, along with the vast majority of my class. But the teachers had lied to us and they had tricked us. They decided they wanted to outsmart a bunch of ten-year-olds and ruin their special day, although I am convinced that cool Mr. Boyd had nothing to do with the scheme. Keeping the Promise was played in Mrs. Barrett's dungeon and the other one was shown in Mr. Boyd's classroom, contrary to what we had been led to believe.

The funny thing is that the students in Mr. Boyd's and Mrs. Barrett's classrooms learned of the switcheroo at the last minute and were able to change their decisions and go party in Mr. Boyd's classroom, while Mrs. Jacobs' unsuspecting students—myself included—were escorted to Mrs. Barrett's place of misery.

No ice cream for us. No piñata. No fun. It took me a little while to realize that the film I was watching was based on a book I had read, as the title was different. The book is called "The Sign of the Beaver." Saddened at my misfortune and envious of the students in Mr. Boyd's classroom, I had to hold back tears as I watched Keeping the Promise with my friends from Mrs. Jacobs' class, along with a few of the nerds from the other classes who had enjoyed the book and wanted to see the film version.

Like I was saying before, you can't have everything.

A pioneer children's movie for all ages – adults included

[SimonJack · 8/10 · 25 April 2014]

"Keeping the Promise" is a wonderful story of historical fiction set in the early pioneer years of America. The script, cinematography and technical values of the film are very good. But the direction and acting set this movie well above the pack of similar children's stories. It's really a children's story fit for the whole family (i.e., adults included).

All the cast are quite good. Keith Carrodine as Will Hallowel, Gordon Tootoosis as Sakniss and William Lightning as Attean are very good. But three of the cast give exceptional performances. They are Annette O'Toole as Anne Hallowell, Brendan Fletcher as Matt, and Maury Chaykin as hunter Ben Loomis.

This movie is an adaptation of the 1983 children's novel, "The Sign of the Beaver," by Elizabeth Speare. That's the title on the DVD I bought. The book has won a number of awards. At least one review laments the film's deviation from the book. It must be considerable, because the film credits don't even mention the book. Adaptations usually are major revisions or changes in direction.

I haven't read the book, but think this movie stands very well by itself. It's a nice story of a family enduring hardships in the early days of America. It's a wonderful film about loss and love, despair and hope, honor and trust. It's about survival, learning, growing and friendship. And, it's about the early displacement of native Americans as our European forefathers settled America. This is a very good film for the whole family.

Great historical drama

[deexsocalygal · 9/10 · 12 July 2021]

If you like period dramas this is for you. Like Little House on the Praire this will take you on a journey in the good old days through rough wild territory with a family of 5. This is the story of a married couple with 3 kids in Pennsylvania in the time when people were just arriving in America. The father buys some land in Maine he goes out there with his oldest son to claim it. They work together to quickly put up a cabin. It's interesting to watch them cut down trees with a handsaw & build the cabin all by themselves. The father has to leave the boy of 11 there by himself so he can go get the mom & other 2 kids & bring them back. He leaves the boy the gun & says he'll be back as soon as possible, in about 2 months. But when the family start out to the cabin in Maine the mom & the littlest baby get the fever. They have to stop traveling & rest to get better. The mom gets well enough to travel again & they set out to catch the next ship out. But the captain of the ship won't let them on board with the fever so they are forced to make the trip on foot with 1 horse & a small buggy. The baby ends up dying. The poor boy is back in Maine all alone & has no idea why his family doesn't show up. He keeps track of time by putting notches in stickes. Each notch is a day, each stick is a week. A bad guy comes knocking at the door & he foolishly lets him in & allows him to sleep inside. When the boy wakes up the man has left with his gun. Now he has no way to get any meat to eat. This movie is really good because you get to see what an experience it was to live back in the days when people were just coming to America. And this poor boy is all alone waiting for his family. And the family knows their boy needs them & they're doing the best they can to get to him. There's more adventures with bad guys & the boy runs into indians. I highly recommend this movie if you like this kind of thing. I loved it.

Great scenery, on the edge of my seat, solid story

[kmtram · 10/10 · 4 July 2014]

I watched the Sign of the Beaver with the same actors and may be an identical movie. This is an accurate period film from historical period/challenges, to costuming, set and seasonal changes...quite impressive. There are at least a few conflicts and antagonists within the story so the writing is very good and not predictable. The scenery is beautiful. The acting is solid and the characters are well developed characters, which is great for value teachings after. Honestly, I was drawn in enough to forget I was watching a movie and had so much hope for the boy. The story contains excellent challenges for young boys in skill, intelligence, judgment and courage...though it mentions Christian faith a few times...it falls a little short on exercising faith in it's main characters. This was a descent compliment to our children's' history and literature analysis classes this year. Unfortunately, there was one use of foul language. Would love to buy and add to our collection.