History Film / LiliesOfTheField

* ShoutOut: The Mexican workers and the German nuns are unable to communicate over the matter of a buiding? Sounds like [[Literature/TheBible the Tower of Babel]].

* FlawlessToken: A hallmark of the career of Sidney Poitier, who was pretty much the first black leading man ever. Here Homer Smith is noble and generous, and willing to build a whole damn church for free. Partially justified when Homer tells Mother Maria that he always wanted to be an architect but couldn't afford the schooling.

** It's implied that Mother Superior tends to disdain Homer's concerns because she considers them insignificant compared to her own experiences. Finally being tricked into saying "Thank you" in the final scene startles her.
** A local priest admits to praying selfishly and vainly early in his vocation for a big congregation and church to preach in, and considers it [[LaserGuidedKarma fitting punishment]] for him to now preach to small local gatherings who don't even have a church. Homer's chapel stuns him beyond words.

** The basis of Homer's and Mother Maria's conflict is their refusal to appreciate one another; Homer thinks of her as another FunnyForeigner (at one point comparing the Mother Superior, who crossed the Berlin Wall to emigrate to America, to Hitler himself) while suffering from a case of DudeWheresMyRespect.

** A local priest admits to praying selfishly and vainly early in his vocation for a big congregation and church to preach in, and considers it [[LaserGuidedKarma fitting punishment]] for him to now preach to local gatherings who don't even have a church. Homer's chapel stuns him beyond words.

* HandyMan: Homer's being one of these turns out to be quite providential for the nuns.

''Lilies of the Field'' is a 1963 drama film directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Creator/SidneyPoitier.

Homer Smith (Poitier) is an itinerant laborer who is driving through the Arizona desert when he stops at a small isolated farmhouse, looking for water for his overheated radiator. The house turns out to be occupied by a group of German-speaking nuns, escapees from East Germany and elsewhere in the Communist bloc. The nuns are living a very hardscrabble life in the desert, appearing to survive on nothing more than the milk from one cow and the eggs from a few chickens. Mother Maria (Lilia Skala), the mother superior of the group, prevails on Homer to fix the leaky roof to the farmhouse, which he does.

* {{Sequel}}: The 1979 MadeForTVMovie ''Christmas Lilies of the Field'', in which Homer (Creator/BillyDeeWilliams) returns to the chapel years later and is convinced by Mother Maria (Maria Schell) to build an orphanage and schoolhouse for a group of orphans and runaways that the nuns have taken in.

After staying the night with the nuns, Homer wakes up the next morning expecting to be paid for his work. Mother Maria, however, does not pay him--eventually it becomes clear that she has no money to pay him with. Instead, by sheer force of will she prevails upon Homer to stick around and do odd jobs on the nuns' little farm in exchange for room and board. Homer also takes on the job of driving the nuns to their weekly Sunday mass, which is held in the parking lot of a gas station because there is no church. Mother Maria comes to believe that Homer has been sent to the nuns by God to carry out her dream: the construction of a real chapel next to the farmhouse, to give local Catholics a real place of worship. While Homer would still prefer to be paid in cash, he also has unfulfilled dreams of being an architect, so eventually he agrees.