LILIES OF THE FIELD, last week's Reel 13 Classic, is famous for being the film that led the first African-American (Sidney Poitier) to a Best Actor Academy Award. However, as an overall product, it's something of a disappointment. The film is built around the conceit that Homer, Poitier's character, helps out a group of German expatriate nuns with some chores around the house and then can sever seem to leave. However, the manner in which they continually trick, guilt or goad him into staying on quickly becomes tiresome. It's like a handful of bad episodes of "Gilligan's Island" in which some mishap or hijinks prevent our heroes from escaping the island.
One would then assume that Sidney Poitier's Oscar-winning work in the film carries it, but I personally didn't think he was all that great. He doesn't so much create a deep, three-dimensional character as he does rely on his strongest assets – his charm and charisma, those qualities that made him palatable to white audiences of the 50's and 60's. It was, by no means, the best work of his career (THE DEFIANT ONES, TO SIR WITH LOVE, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT and GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER are all stronger) or even the best leading man work of 1963 (Albert Finney in TOM JONES is one example). I don't even think it was the best performance in the film. Lilia Skala (well before she became famous for FLASHDANCE) does some terrific, nuanced work as Mother Maria. The conflict within her character is significantly more subtle and therefore, in a way, more palpable.
As rich as the black and white cinematography is, the direction of the film is mostly haphazard. The angles are generally uninspired and the blocking for the camera is clunky (I point to several scenes in the nuns' meeting room as examples). The majority of the scenes are slow and ramble on longer than they should and as a result, the film never seems to catch any headwind – no momentum. The second half of the film is much stronger, once the repetitive cat and mouse games with the nuns take a backseat to Homer's determination to build a chapel, but it's too little too late to rescue the film from ultimately being a big ol' bore.
(For more information on this or any other Reel 13 film, check out their website at www.reel13.org)