Wonderful Family Fare, Wish More Were Like It

The 1974 American drama film Where the Lilies Bloom is based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Bill and Vera Cleaver. This movie’s titles contain an odd error: they state that the book was a Newbery Honor, which it was not. It was a finalist for the National Book Award. The screenplay was by Earl Hamner, Jr., who created The Waltons.

The Luther family has lived in the mountains of North Carolina for over 200 years. Recently they were forced into sharecropping because the father, Roy Luther, played by Rance Howard, failed to pay some taxes which the neighbor, Kiser Pease, played by Harry Dean Stanton, paid to acquire the land, but let the Luthers stay because he is sweet on the oldest girl, Devola, played by Jan Smithers, although she is no older than eighteen and he is at least thirty. Roy Luther will never approve of them marrying, and makes the second oldest girl, fourteen-year-old Mary Call, promise to never allow it to happen.

Roy Luther is terminally ill with a respiratory condition. Like Roy Luther, Devola is not of a practical nature, so the burden of everything falls on young Mary Call, played by Julie Gholson. Roy Luther makes her promise to keep the family together and never accept charity. Before dying, he constructs his own coffin, and the children, consisting of Devola, Mary Call, Romey, played by Matthew Burril, who is about twelve, and Ima Dean, played by Helen Harmon, who is five, bury him in secret and carry on a charade that he is still living.

Julie Gholson as Mary Call really carries the movie. Mary Call keeps after the others to tend a vegetable garden and collect roots and herbs for which a local grocer will pay them. When things reach a critical point, Mary Call is prepared to make a terrible sacrifice to save the family, then breaks down and wants to leave the whole situation behind.

There is not much here of an objectionable nature. No smoking, drinking, or foul language. A young child lifted from a tub is seen from the back. An underage and unlicensed driver borrows a car and takes her siblings on a wild joyride.

Special mention must be given to the soundtrack, which features folk music, most notably an instrumental of “All My Trials,” and several songs in a folk style written and sung beautifully, and just as perfect for this movie as was the music in Sounder.

This movie was produced by Radnitz/Mattel Productions, the same people who made the incomparable Sounder. It is a shame that this company made so few films, and that more such fine films are not adapted from children’s literature instead of the same tired sequels and remakes with which audiences are now bombarded. Although Where the Lilies Bloom is not as good as Sounder, it is an excellent movie of a kind which was rare even fifty years ago and is almost unheard of today. Probably the only recent example is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, also based on a children’s book published in 1972. I would give this film my highest recommendation, it is well worth a look.