Product: Lilies of the Field [VHS] (1963)
Rating: 5.0
"Just passing thru."
This is a smooth effortless beautiful story of faith. Other stories just seem to try so hard to make a point. This one succeeds!I used to watch this when I was a child. I saw it again over the weekend with my niece who is 13. Every movie I dusted off to play she would revert back to her toddler days and start whining. But I stuck to my guns and made her watch this. Of course the whining was even louder when she saw it was in Black and White, but it didn't take long for her to be reeled in. This movie is so endearing and it always amazes me how in ANY movie Sidney Poitier did in the early sixties he struck such a cord with the viewers to where you could not take your eyes off of him. NO ONE could have made this role work other than him, even Gregory Peck who I adore. Somehow it just wouldn't have been the same at all.With faith that could move a mountain the Reverend Mother thanks God for the man who will build a Chapel for her as Homer Smith or "Omer Schmitt" as she refers to him, stops there for water. When he notices her giving Thanks, he is very quick to tell her he is "just passing thru" to which she replies "Yah.... but you stopped." So begins the battle of faith and wills. She has no money in which to pay him; he works for hire so he can go further out west, yet thru her faith in God Homer will build her a "SHAP-IL". Homer's charm and generosity both melts some of her icy exterior and makes her let go of her ferocious pride as head of household when he brings brightness to the sisters' barren existence yet he doesn't allow her to run him over. (Not every time.) Although he and the Reverend Mother are just like oil and water Homer finds that he cannot up and leave them.It's amazing how a story whose cinematography shows the starkness of the landscape with the nuns walking in the distance (just 5 little black dots against a panoramic landscape of blazing white) and gentle story line can make you feel serene and happy where you would not usually equate the desert to those feelings. It's such a beautiful flowing mix of emotions and visions that you can't help but feel heart broken when the reverend mother realizes at the end what is going on when the sisters are singing "Amen." You want everything to stay just as it is. This story just seems to flow with no effort.It just unfolds...... absolutely beautiful.