Welcome to "Saturday Night at the Movies."

I'm your host, Glenn Holland.

Tonight's movie is the comedy-drama "Lilies of the Field," released by United Artists in 1963.

Based on an novella by William Edmund Barrett, the film was the pet project of actor, producer, and director Ralph Nelson, who made it on location in 15 days on a budget of about a quarter of a million dollars.

"Lilies of the Field" stars Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, and Stanley Adams, with support from Dan Frazer, an uncredited Ralph Nelson, and several actors for whom this was their first and only film appearance.

Ex-GI Homer Smith is a jack-of-all-trades traveling through the American Southwest.

One day, he turns off the road to get some water at an isolated desert ranch.

There he finds a small group of women working at various farm jobs, but their limited ability to speak English leaves them confused.

An older woman emerges from the ranch house and tells Homer the women are nuns, and she is their mother superior, Mother Maria Marthe.

She insists Homer help them by repairing the roof of the house, a job he completes in a few hours, but when he tries to collect his pay, Mother Maria instead invites him to stay for supper, calling him Schmidt.

As they share their frugal meal, the nuns converse in German, but Homer undertakes playfully to teach them some English, much to their delight.

The next morning, when Homer goes to Mother Maria to receive his pay, she sits him down to a meager breakfast and tells him he has been sent by God to help the nuns by building a chapel for them.

Homer is not so sure, but stays on with the nuns another day.

On Sunday, Mother Maria tells Homer he will drive the nuns to Mass, saving them their usual long and dusty walk.

They direct him to a roadside diner where a small crowd and a vested priest wait before a portable altar.

Homer declines to join their worship, insisting he's a Baptist.

He instead orders a big breakfast at the diner and gets into a conversation with the owner, Juan, who tells him the nuns escaped from East Germany to establish their community in the United States.

After the service, the priest confides in Homer that the nuns have no money but are convinced that Homer will build them a chapel.

Homer just wants to be paid and move on, but Mother Maria stubbornly maintains that he must stay, leading to a battle of wills and faith.

Sidney Poitier's parents owned a farm on Cat Island in the Bahamas and came to Miami, Florida periodically to sell their produce.

Sydney, their seventh and youngest child, was born prematurely in Miami on January 20th, 1927, giving him American as well as Bahamian citizenship.

He moved to the United States at the age of 15 and served in the Army during the Second World War.

After the war, he worked on stage in New York before coming to Hollywood in 1949 to appear as a doctor in "No Way Out."

The film portrayed what its director, Joseph Mankiewicz, called the absolute blood and guts of Negro hating.

Poitier made a big impression that gave him the opportunity to go on to other films where he played roles more nuanced, realistic, and diverse than those offered to most other African-American actors at the time.

Poitier notably appeared in "Cry, the Beloved Country" in 1951, the "Blackboard Jungle" in 1955, and Martin Ritt's "Edge of the City" in 1957.

He costarred with Tony Curtis in Stanley Kramer's, "The Defiant Ones," in 1958, a film that led to both Curtis and Poitier being nominated for the Academy Award for best actor.

Poitier's nomination was the first for an African-American man in a competitive Oscar category.

In 1959, Poitier starred alongside Ruby Dee in the original Broadway production of Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun," the story of an African-American family on the South Side of Chicago now considered one of the best American plays ever written.

In 1961, Poitier and most of the rest of the Broadway cast appeared in the film adaptation of "The Plague."

In many ways, 1963's "Lilies of the Field" was a different sort of film for Sidney Poitier.

It was made quickly on location with a low budget and a small cast.

Poitier's role as Homer Smith was different than most of the characters he had previously played in films.

As a reviewer for "The Hollywood Reporter" noted when "Lilies of the Field" was first released, "Poitier has had little opportunity "to display his comic talents.

"Nevertheless," he added, "he shows here his timing and technique are impeccable."

Sidney Poitier wrote in his 1980 autobiography "This Life," "The real star of 'Lilies of the Field' was the man whose creative force, whose integrity and professional commitment husbanded the entire project into being, Ralph Nelson."

Once he had read William Edmund Barrett's 92-page novella, Nelson was determined to bring it to the screen.

With $250,000 from United Artists and using his own home as collateral for a loan, Nelson worked with production manager Joe Popkin to shoot the movie as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"Lilies of the Field" was shot on location near Tucson, Arizona on a ranch owned by Gilbert Ronstadt, father of singer Linda Ronstadt.

Instead of having a production designer, director Nelson had property master Robert Eaton rent the props in Hollywood, drive them to Tucson, and then returned them at the end of the shoot.

Eaton also supervised the construction of the chapel which the crew had to build at night to match the day-by-day progress shown in the film.

Although the movie's chapel was a real building, it was completely dismantled when shooting was completed.

All that remains are the beautiful doors borrowed from and later returned to a chapel in Sasabe, Arizona, the handiwork of a local Tucson artist Charles Bolsius.

Nelson persuaded Sidney Poitier to forego his usual salary for a profit-sharing deal.

He could only offer union scale wages to Austrian theater actress Lilia Skala, who supported herself between acting jobs by working in a factory.

Nelson cast himself as Mr. Ashton, his secretary Lisa Mann as one of the nuns, Sister Gertrude, production manager Popkin's daughter Pamela Branch as Sister Elizabeth, and two Tucson housewives Isa Crino and Francesca Jarvis as Sister Agnes and Sister Albertine.

The only professional actors in the supporting cast apart from Nelson himself were Dan Frazer's Father Murphy and as Juan, veteran character actor Stanley Adams, then best known for his role as Rutherford Rusty Trawler, the ninth richest man in America under 50 in 1961's "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

Music makes an important contribution to the atmosphere of "Lilies of the Field."

Composer Jerry Goldsmith made extensive use of Jester Hairston's "Amen" throughout the film while Hairston himself provided the gospel arrangement of the song, arrange the vocal parts, and dubbed the vocals for Sidney Poitier, who was tone deaf.

The nun's initial performance of "Amen" was too good, but their attempts to sing it badly didn't come off well.

Finally, their singing was dubbed in editing using a somewhat flattened version of their original performance.

Reviews of "Lilies of the Field" were generally enthusiastic.

The reviewer for the trade paper "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote: "Lilies of the Field" is a funny, sentimental, charming, and uplifting film in which intelligence, imagination, and energy are proved again to be beyond the price of any super-budget.

"Lilies," it is safe to say, will be a great audience picture.

It deserves all its popularity and whatever artistic success it is granted.

"Variety" said it was "loaded with charm and full of good, clean, honest, fun."

"Lilies of the Field" was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay for James Poe, Best Black and White Cinematography for Ernest Haller, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Lilia Skala, and Best Actor for Sidney Poitier.

Poitier won, making him the first African American to receive the award and only the second African American to win any Academy acting award after Hattie McDaniel's Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for 1939's "Gone with the Wind."

After Poitier, the next African American to win the Oscar for Best Actor was Denzel Washington in 2001 for "Training Day," followed by Jamie Foxx in 2004 for "Ray," Forest Whitaker in 2006 for "The Last King of Scotland," and Will Smith in 2021 for "King Richard."

Up against the likes of Richard Harris for "This Sporting Life," Albert Finney for "Tom Jones," Paul Newman for "Hud," and Rex Harrison for the blockbuster "Cleopatra," Sidney Poitier did not expect to win the Oscar and had not prepared an acceptance speech.

When Anne Bancroft announced his name, he was shocked and somewhat bewildered.

His impromptu speech began, "It has been a long journey to this moment."

Please join us again next time for another "Saturday Night at the Movies."

I'm Glenn Holland.

Goodnight.