Promise at Dawn (1970) – Nostalgia Central

This epic biographical drama is based on author Romain Gary’s memoir Promise at Dawn and Samuel Taylor’s play First Love. It is Gary’s third novel to be filmed, after The Roots of Heaven and Lady L.

As we see in the film, his (unmarried) mother Nina Kacew (played by iconic Greek actress Melina Mercouri, the real-life wife of director Jules Dassin) was a truly remarkable woman. A Russian Jewish actress of silent films in Leningrad in the 1920’s, she had great aspirations for her only child.

At the age of nine, Romain is a poor violinist, a terrible dancer, but an excellent table tennis player — he wins the ping-pong championships of Leningrad, and Nina proudly wears the ball, fitted into a necklace, for the rest of her days,

To fund his elite education and maintain a facade of upper-class respectability, Nina moves them from Leningrad to Kraków, Poland, where, to keep themselves alive, Nina poses as the representative of a Paris dress designer.

But her fraud is discovered, and the pair move to the South of France

It is here, while his mother is earning a precarious living taking on any job – all while keeping her worsening diabetes a secret from Romain so he can focus on his writing – that Romain pursues his literary career.

The outbreak of World War II sees Nina’s son serve as a navigator in the French Air Force, and after France’s surrender, he answers the call for loyal Frenchmen to go to England.

He never sees his mother again — she dies without knowing he becomes a war hero.

The story remains so culturally significant in France that it was completely remade decades later. In 2017, director Éric Barbier released a highly acclaimed, high-budget French remake of Promise at Dawn starring Charlotte Gainsbourg as Nina and Pierre Niney as Romain.

Nina Kacewa
Melina Mercouri
Romain Kacew age 25
Assaf Dayan
Romain Kacew age 15
Didier Haudepin
Romain Kacew age 9
François Raffoul
Aniela
Despo Diamantidou
Igor Igorevitch
Jean Martin
Jean-Michel Serusier
Fernand Gravey
Madame Mailer
Jacqueline Porel
Nathalie Lissenko
Maria Machado
Romain’s Friend
Julie Dassin
Mr Piekielny
René Clermont
Louison
Carol Cole
Mariette
Marina Nestora
Valentine Mailer
Audrey Berindey
Madame de Rare
Jacqueline Duc
Angélique
Muni
Silent Film Heroine
Thérèse Thoreux
Ivan Mosjukine
Jules Dassin (as Perlo Vita)
Belle Gueule
Dennis Berry

Director
Jules Dassin