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Koster would work with Stewart four more times, with fond memories of each film. Koster's comedies encouraged a nostalgic feel for his audience, an escape for a world weary of war, a yearning for simpler times and innocence lost.

But it was the films of faithful, and usually Christian, individuals that sets Koster's career apart from many of his peers. "I did stories about Catholics, Protestants and Jews," he proclaimed proudly. "I always was very much interested in religion, and I still am. I'm the only Jew, I think, who goes regularly to church. I've never been to temples, but them I wasn't brought up that way."

"I like stories that are a little pixie-ish, a little fairytale-like, and tell a truth," Koster said. "I like to have that family feeling. I have never been too much involved in love stories of young men and women, but always with parents and children, or friends. I don't know. It must be in me, something that I feel very strong about family, about religion. These are things I believe in."

Koster's first foray into studio spirituality was The Bishop's Wife (1947), for which he was nominated for a directorial Oscar (he never won one, though he directed six Oscar-winning actors). Despite not wanting to play in the role, Cary Grant glows as an angel sent to help an Episcopalian bishop (played by David Niven) and his wife, played by Loretta Young, who falls for the angel (unaware of his supernatural advantage). Koster's restraint from showing any supernatural miracles (as, say, deMille would have done) add to the humanity of the angel character, as well as to the nobility of the human characters.

Come to the Stable (1949), one of Koster's favorite films, featured nuns who enlist a gang of unlikely volunteers to help build a children's hospital. The star, Loretta Young, was a devout Catholic, who one day brought a "cuss box" to the set, charging a quarter for every "darn" and more for words of greater obscenity, the proceeds of which would go to her favorite charity. Koster chuckled and put two dollars in the box as credit for the day.

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In 1952, Koster made history, helming the first widescreen CinemaScope film, The Robe, which still makes lists of all-time box office record setters. Though a difficult film to shoot (many shots had to be done twice to be re-framed for the non-widescreen television version), Koster made his masterpiece with The Robe. Starring Richard Burton in his prime, the story concerns the tribune Marcellus, assigned to crucify Jesus, who wins Christ's robes in a drunken game of chance. He is tormented by what he has done and learns more about the man he killed, eventually converting to Christianity himself, and becoming a willing martyr for the cause.

Nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, The Robe is similar to Ben-Hur and Barabbas as films centered around characters peripheral to the gospel story, allowing for more invention on the part of the filmmaker as compared with using a story straight out of Scripture (yet see The Story of Ruth, below). Though dated in many ways, The Robe still holds up among its peers as a watershed example of the Hollywood studio epic of the '50s.

Koster called A Man Called Peter (1955) the happiest picture he ever made. A biopic of Peter Marshall, the Scotsman who became Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, A Man Called Peter was written by Marshall's wife Catherine (also the author of Christie), and deftly portrays a man of faith with the courage to live by his convictions. Other than living next door to Ronald Reagan in later years, this was as close as Koster came to politics.

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