San Diego Reader April 20, 2017 57
The Promise of a sprawling 1960s epic
T
he Promise follows The Otto- man Lieutenant and Queen of the Desert as the third film in
almost as many weeks set in the Otto- man Empire near the end of World War I. They saved the best for last. When the Turks learned that former studio head Kirk Kerkorian planned on turning Franz Werfel’s 1933 novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh into a feature film, they threat- ened to interfere with the distribution of MGM’s films in Turkey. Additional pressure was put on the American gov- ernment, and the project was shelved. But for whatever reason, Kerkorian could not go to his grave without this story being told onsceen. He signed a check for $100 million and insisted that all proceeds go to charity. The result is a sprawling, 1960s-style epic with just enough political intrigue to prop up the occasionally wobbly romantic tri- angle formed by Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon, and an uncharacteristically ill-fitting Christian Bale. Terry George (Reservation Road) directs. — Matthew Lickona
and how his friends had reacted. But my stepmother, Ruth Nelson,
MOVIES
told me what a toll it took on my father. He went on from Point of No Return to do two hit plays in New York, Sabrina Fair and Mary, Mary. It didn’t really affect his career except that he
would never go back to Hollywood again. Ruth was in the first company at the Guthrie Theatre, where many of the people who had been blacklisted came from. It cost her dearly because she was supposed to do Linda in Death of a Salesman with Lee J. Cobb. She told (director Elia) Kazan that
she couldn’t leave my father because he was so devastated by the reac- tions of his friends on the lot, mainly Robert Montgomery. Montgomery cut him and would not speak to him, even though he had nothing to testify about because he came to Hollywood way, way before the Communists got involved in New York. I think it actually saved his life
James Cromwell kicked dirt on a director With a list of credits and accomplish- ments as impressive as James Crom- well’s — including his brief appearance in The Promise, opening this week — 15 minutes clearly was not enough. Visit The Big Screen for more from this remarkable actor and fine man. Scott Marks: You were something like 10 or 11 when your father was blacklisted. Your parents were divorced at the time and you were living with your mother (actress Kay Johnson). Would you talk about how conscious you were of what was happening, and the effect McCarthyism had on your family? James Cromwell: I really didn’t know anything about it. My father and my stepmother were in New York. He was doing a play on Broadway with Henry Fonda called Point of No Return about J. P. Marquand. They had people over to the house… everything seemed just fine. It wasn’t until five years later that he started to tell me what had hap- pened in Hollywood: why he had been blacklisted, who had been involved,
that he left this community — which I think he was basically sick of — and went to New York and then to Min- neapolis, where the theatre community supported him. Working on Broadway really stimulated him. So he did fine. SM: I went on Facebook and asked my friends if they had any questions for you. Lalo Flores from Chicago writes, “While filming L.A. Confidential, did he have any idea that it was going to be so good? The film had horrible promotion and you couldn’t really tell what it was going to be like from the trailers.” If I remember, the poster was equally unfriendly. JC: The three of us — Guy Pearce, Rus- sell Crowe, and myself — had a lot of problems with Curtis Hanson. Cur- tis had very distinct directing styles, which were different for the three of us. With me, it was to say no to everything I suggested. With Guy, it was to tell him that he’d made a mistake casting him in the first place. And Russell… I don’t know about Russell. The first day of rehearsal when I met Russell, he was fit to be tied. That just continued and we were constantly trying to figure out how we could fix it by playing these games with Curtis. It turned out that Curtis was more expert than all of us put together.
(Laughing.) He made a wonderful film in spite of the three of us. SM: I’m so glad this had a happy end- ing. I didn’t want you to go on record slamming Curtis Hanson! JC: I kicked dirt on him. I didn’t punch him, but I punched the car. I called him every name in the book, and as soon as the film opened it was like we
The Promise: (Not enough) James Cromwell and Christian Bale.
were best friends. He was great. He had forgotten all about it. SM: Before this interview is over, I will have spent more time talking to you than you do appearing on screen in The Promise. An hour-and-a-half into the picture and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m in the wrong theatre. JC (Laughing): Right?
SM: You can’t be on screen for more than five minutes, yet the subject mat- ter means enough to you that you’re willing to promote it as if you were the star. Why? JC: This man who produced it, Eric Esrailian, is a doctor who never made a movie. He went through all the hoops that Hollywood demands. He came to
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