Lilies of the Field

This is one of my favorite films of all time, and I think the whole cast does a wonderful job of carrying the movie. It is the story of a group of German speaking nuns who need a miracle in order to build a church in a poor, desert town. The miracle comes in the form of an itinerant jack of all trades played by Poitier, whose faith is a little shabby around the edges. There is a lot of humor as the Mother Superior resorts to a little manipulation in order to see the church completed. Both Scala's character and Poitier's learn that they both needed to rely more on faith, and less on their own power. This is a movie for the whole family I think. It does deal with some issues on prejudice, and Poitier's character gets drunk at one point, but the Mother Superior sees that he does not enjoy the latter experience much. As for the way it dealt with prejudice, I thought it was well done for the time.

I think the point of this film is about faith. Everyone likes a good miracle movie. Right? Well, not quite. There was plenty of cringe worthy moments regarding race. Mr. Ashton calling Homer 'boy' and then telling the nuns that Smith was lazy and shiftless-but still wanted him to work for him. (Weird.) I hated the scenes where he was just shuffling to please them. And I didn't understand why Mother Maria simply couldn't say 'Thank You' especially when she was begging for everything. Out of all the good roles Poitier has played, they give him the Oscar for when he played a good field slave doing what he was told. Whatever.

This DVD arrived in a timely fashion. Sidney Poitier is an all time favorite actor of mine;I will enjoy having this DVD in my collection.

Love this movie! Ever since I was a child--it talks of behavior, faith, work ethic, community and society. Would have loved some extras, though. Like an interview with Mr. Poitier on his memories in making the movie

This is one of those movies every movie buff should see at least once. This is a feel good movie to watch when you feel life is being too tough on you. I always liked this movie, but it is surprisingly realistic since I met Helga, a 79yo Berliner visiting the States. Mother Superior is NO caricature, they really do come that way.