Ernest Borgnine, who won the Academy Award as best actor for 1955’s Marty and has appeared in nearly 100 movies and two hit TV series, will be at the Columbus Theatre Friday night to receive the Rhode Island International Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

The presentation will be followed by a screening of the 92-year-old actor’s latest film, Another Harvest Moon, in which he plays a surprisingly spry stroke victim who is facing the end of his life in a Pennsylvania nursing home.

Another Harvest Moon, which was filmed more than a year ago by director Greg W. Swartz from a script by Jeremy T. Black, centers on Borgnine’s character, Frank.

But it’s also an ensemble piece which, for a low-budget small film, includes some very good work by actors who, like Borgnine, were box-office draws in their day — Piper Laurie, who was an ingénue in a string of Universal adventure films in the 1950s; Anne Meara, who delighted TV audiences in the 1960s with her appearances with fellow comic and husband Jerry Stiller; Cybill Shepherd, who became a star in The Last Picture Show in 1971 and later had a hit in the TV series Moonlighting; Doris Roberts, who won four Emmys as insufferable busybody Marie Barone on TV’s Everybody Loves Raymond.

At the nursing home, Frank is joined in a daily card game by Meara’s Ella, Laurie’s June and Roberts’ Alice, the only one of the three who does not live at the home. But Alice is there almost as much as the others, with daily visits to her old friend June who has dementia and has descended into her own private universe. Alice, who has very strong opinions about everything, especially about how the others should run their lives, is . . . well . . . tolerated by them. And by us. Roberts lets us understand this well-meaning yenta who, although she steamrolls over everyone, is hiding an unhappy secret.

Ella, who is recovering from a broken hip, has developed feelings for Frank, and vice versa. Moments between Meara and Borgnine ring true and touchingly sentimental.

But Frank is under the watchful eye of his controlling daughter, Vickie (a deglamorized Shepherd) and son Jeffrey (Richard Schiff), who has never felt close to his father, something that adds an edgy subtext to their scenes together. Frank is vibrant and alive, however, until his medical condition worsens. Then he begins returning in his mind to the buddies he served with and lost during action in World War II.

Soon an old pistol comes to him in a box of belongings from his home and it threatens to be the catalyst that will propel Another Harvest Moon into edgier territory. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work.

Despite the good work and intentions of all the actors, who each get at least one moment to shine, there’s a reason the film has not gained widespread national release. It seems small and wistful. Despite one potentially earthshaking event, it doesn’t follow through, but rather peters out in dribbles.

It’s nice and well-intentioned, nothing more. Perhaps a better home for it would be on cable television.

Another Harvest Moon will be screened at 7 p.m. Friday at the Columbus Theatre in Providence as part of the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Tickets are $15 at the door.

***Another Harvest Moon

Starring: Ernest Borgnine, Piper Laurie, Anne Meara, Doris Roberts, Richard Schiff, Cybill Shepherd.

Rated: Not rated, contains adult themes.

mjanuson@projo.com