Lilies of the Field (1963 film)

Lilies of the Field
File:266361.1020.A.jpg original film poster
Directed by	Ralph Nelson
Written by	James Poe
Produced by	Ralph Nelson
Starring	Sidney Poitier Lilia Skala
Cinematography	Ernest Haller
Edited by	John McCafferty
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	1963
Running time	94 min.

Lilies of the Field is a 1962 book by William Edmund Barrett which was made into a 1963 film and adapted for the musical stage with the title Look to the Lilies. It tells the story of a Black-American itinerant worker who encounters a group of East German nuns who feel he has been sent to them by God to help them build a new chapel.

The film, which stars Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Lisa Mann, Isa Crino, Francesca Jarvis, Pamela Branch, Stanley Adams and Dan Frazer, was adapted by James Poe from the novel. It was produced and directed by Ralph Nelson. The title comes from Matthew 6:28 in the New Testament.

Poitier won the Academy Award for Best Actor, a first for a black male actor. The first black person to win an Oscar is Hattie McDaniels in 1939 for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind. The film was also nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Lilia Skala), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Plot

Homer Smith is an itinerant handyman/jack-of-all-trades who stops at a farm in the Arizona desert to replenish his water supply. The farm is run by a group of German nuns. He is persuaded to do a small roofing repair and stays overnight, believing that he will be paid in the morning.

In fact, the nuns have no money and subsist only by living off the land, on what vegetables the arid climate provides, and some milk and eggs. Even after being stalled/stonewalled when asking for payment, and after being persuaded to stay for a meal, and against his better judgement, Smith agrees to stay another day to help them with other small jobs, always with the faint hope that Mother Maria Marthe, the head nun (called "Mother Maria" and played by Lilia Skala in the film) will settle with him.

As Smith's strength and many construction skills, and tools, are revealed to the small order of nuns as he finishes the repairs needed, they come to believe that he has been sent by God to help them in their dream of building a chapel for the nearby townsfolk.

Soon, the weekend is upon them, and Smith offers to give the nuns a ride to Sunday service so they do not have to make the long trip on foot as they usually are required to do. He is invited to attend the Catholic mass, but he declines because he is a Baptist. Instead, he takes the opportunity to get proper breakfast fare from the service station/cafe/store adjacent to where the religious service is held. In talking to the proprietor Juan (Stanley Adams), Smith learns about the hardships that the nuns, led by the unyielding Mother Maria, overcame in order to emigrate from Eastern Europe -- over the Berlin Wall -- only to barely scratch out a meager living on the farm that was willed to their order.

Despite the unlikelihood of his ever getting paid for his work and partly out of respect for all the order has overcome, Smith stays longer and finds himself driven to work further on at least clearing the construction site for the chapel. He rationalizes that it would be too hard for the women of the order to move the heavy beams and so he is willing to do at least this much for them.

At one point, after losing a Bible-quoting duel with Mother Maria where he attempted to prove the point that she should settle with him, he confesses that he had always wanted to be an architect, but couldn't afford the schooling, and this impels him to finally agree to undertake the job of building them a chapel.

To earn money to buy some "real food" to supplement the spartan diet the nuns are able to provide him, Smith gets a part-time job with the nearby construction contractor, Mr. Ashton, who is impressed that Smith can handle nearly every manner of heavy equipment he owns.

To pass the evenings, Smith teaches the nuns some basic English and even joins them in singing. They share their different musical traditions with one another: their Catholic chants and his Southern Baptist hymns. At one point, he sings the song "Amen" by Jester Hairston, which was dubbed by Hairston.

Smith, determined that the building will be constructed to the highest standards, insists that work be done by him and only him. As word spreads about the endeavor, locals begin to show up to give materials and to help in construction, but Smith rebuffs all offers of assistance in the labor. After a long interval of Smith gaining a larger and larger audience for his efforts, the locals, impressed with his determination, but no less dogged than he, will content themselves no longer with just watching but find minuscule ways to lend a hand which cannot be easily turned down - the lifting of a bucket or brick to an elevated Smith, for example. Once the camel's nose is in the tent, they end up doing as they intended and as Smith tried in vain to resist, assisting in every aspect of the construction in addition to contributing materials. This greatly accelerates the progress, much to the delight of everyone but Smith.

Even Ashton, who had long ignored Mother Maria's pleas, finds an excuse to deliver some more materials, and almost overnight, Smith finds that he's become a building foreman and contractor. Enduring the hassles of coordinating the work of so many, the constant disputes with Mother Maria, and the trial of getting enough materials for the building, Smith brings the chapel, finally, to completion.

The evening before the Sunday when the chapel is to be dedicated arrives. All the work has been done and Smith is exhausted. Against her will, as part of a sentence Smith uses to help teach Mother Maria more English, she thanks Smith. Up until that moment, it had been her practice to thank only God for the work, assistance and gifts that Smith had provided to the nuns. It is a touching moment between two strong personalities.

Later, as the nuns sing their nightly hymns, and after taking one last look at the chapel he built, Smith, knowing that his work is done, slips out of the house and drives quietly off into the night.

The book version relates how Homer Smith and what he did became mythologized into something miraculous by the townsfolk, and the stained glass window which the nuns place behind the altar of the chapel is of a saint who bears a striking resemblance to Homer Smith.

A sequel, Christmas Lilies of the Field, was made in 1979 for television.

The movie was filmed on the eastern edge of the City of Tucson. The church doors were borrowed from the Chapel in Sasabe Arizona and were carved by local Tucson artist Charles Bolsius.

Trivia

• The trailer for the film advertises the film in an unconventional way. It takes place after the events in the film. Homer has arrived in another town and tells the story of a man named Homer Smith to another man as well as the lessons that Homer learned. The man asks what happened to Homer, to which Homer replies that he does not know and then leaves. A woman who is friends with the man arrives and staring at Homer leaving, exclaims: "Do you know who that was...that was Harry Belafonte!"

External links

• Lilies of the Field at IMDb