Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Steineded How sad is this?

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 25 October 1949 by Paramount Pictures Corp. New York release at both the Paramount and Rivoli Theatres, 21 December 1949. U.S. release: 28 March 1951. U.K. release: 26 March 1951. Australian premiere at the Majestic (Adelaide): 21 September 1951. Australian release: 12 October 1951. 127 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Considerable liberties have been taken with the biblical account, principally to whitewash Samson and to introduce Delilah much earlier into the narrative. As a result, many familiar details have been omitted or altered. Samson killing thirty men for their garments is changed to a comic robbery, Samson burning the Philistine fields by tying torches to the tails of three hundred foxes in revenge for his wife being given to another is eliminated. And after Samson slew a legion of Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, twenty years elapsed - during which Samson virtually ruled Israel - before Delilah entered the picture. After betraying him, however, she disappears from the bible narrative and it is most unlikely that she ever saw Samson again.COMMENT: The biblical picture was principally seen by Hollywood as an excuse for spectacle and sex. What censor could dare object to Delilah's sauntering around most seductively in skin-tight shapely garments when this is the very image the Bible itself portrays? And who better to saunter and caper about than the exotic Hedy Lamarr?It must be admitted that Mature looks the part of Samson too. But aside from the urbane George Sanders, the rest of the players are somewhat wanting both in style and appearance and also in acting ability. They are up against some laughably banal dialogue, it is true, and decked out in costumes that are often ridiculously unflattering, no-one could envy them their task. But for stiffness, hamminess or sheer ineptitude, the enormous roster of players assembled here would be hard to beat.The sets too often look phoney and unreal - despite all the money obviously lavished on the production - and the pace is sometimes figetingly slow. De Mille's direction has so little of his customary dash and style that the shot everyone remembers is not the temple crashing down (with its obvious special effects) or even the fight with the lion (obvious doubles for both star and beast are all too evident), but the dolly shot from the ant city to a corner of the Saran's palace!Fortunately, aside from its two stars, Samson and Delilah has two other redeeming assets - George Barnes' lustrous color photography and Victor Young's melodic score. Both artists were nominated for Academy Awards, but incredibly both missed out - Barnes to Robert Surtees' King Solomon's Mines; Young to Franz Waxman's Sunset Boulevard. Special effects were also nominated, but lost to the far more deserving Destination Moon. Even more incredibly Samson and Delilah won Academy Awards for its sets and costumes. Excluding the magnificent creations Hedy Lamarr slinks around in, the costumes are ridiculous. The Philistine helmets are the oddest we've ever seen (couldn't the art department afford feathered plumes?) and even the scruffiest extras and the most poverty-laden villagers are trussed in garments as new and fresh as minted gold.OTHER VIEWS: Took almost two years to reach my city. Presumably Paramount wanted more time to fire publicity guns. But ballyhoo didn't help. The initial engagement (at road-show admission prices) ran a disappointing seven weeks before being replaced by a double bill of Appointment With Danger and The Great Missouri Raid. The reason for this lukewarm boxoffice is not hard to find. The plot is so well-known it has no novelty or suspense, the characters are cardboard cut-outs and their dialogue is as trite and banal as a dime-store romance. Although Sanders is delightfully suave and Lamarr provocatively sensuous, Mature is a thick-lipped Samson and Wilcoxon a wooden Philistine. True, the action scenes are handled with customary De Mille efficiency and the photography is attractively colored (though most of the real Palestinian backgrounds were left on the cutting-room floor) and there's plenty of on-screen evidence of a $3 million budget - but are these enough to justify both a hike in ticket price and 128 minutes of sluggish running-time? - J.H.R. in "The Gang's All Here!"

weezeralfalfa Cecil DeMille's take on this well-known Old Testament story is quite entertaining and beautifully photographed in 3-strip Technicolor. I checked out the story in the Bible to get an idea how much DeMille had elaborated on it. Quite a bit, as I had anticipated! The relationship between Sampson and Delilah is much more complex than that described in the bible. It's a mutual love-hate relationship. Quite against the advice of his family and friends, Sampson decided to marry a Philistine princess: Semadar(Angela Lansbury). While preparing for the wedding, Semadar's younger sister, the beautiful Delilah, made herself known to Sampson. They rode a chariot out into the desert to a lion's den, and Sampson grappled with a lion, finally strangling it. Delilah was most impressed, and they kissed. However, when given a choice between the two, Sampson still chose Semadar, perhaps because of her golden hair. Delilah was very disappointed, and vowed to see Samson brought to his knees. Semadar, along with her father, was soon murdered by her own people. Delilah blamed Sampson as the indirect cause, making her hate him more, and yet still loving him at times. Semadar's death reopened the question whether Delilah might take Semadar's place in Sampson's life. Delilah was offered a fortune by the Philistine council, if she could learn the secrete of Sampson's extraordinary strength. Sampson came to her and, at first, offered false leads. Eventually, he told her that his faith in God and his long hair was the source of his strength. Thus, Delilah gave him a sedative in his drink, putting him in a deep sleep, then cut his hair. When he awoke, he was bound and surrounded by spears. After Delilah left, the Saran(George Sanders), ordered that Samson be blinded by a red-hot knife, before being bound to a grain mill stone, as oxen were.Delilah enjoyed seeing Samson doing slave labor, but was horrified when she discovered that Sampson had been blinded, for she still had feelings for him. She secretly told him she would be his eyes from now on. A Hebrew woman who had long hoped Samson would marry her, showed up and requested that she be allowed to take Sampson home. But, Delilah responded that she would not allow any other woman to romance Sampson, even now that he was blind. During the public humiliation of Sampson in the temple of Dagon(Philistine god), Sampson requests that Delilah lead him to the pillars that held up the back portion of the temple, including the idol of Dagon. This she does, and he tells her to leave the temple. But she refuses. If he succeeds in toppling the temple, clearly he will die, and the implication is that she wishes to die with him.Given all the Philistines that Sampson had killed prior to the temple collapse, it's a wonder he wasn't killed immediately after his capture. But that wasn't what Delilah wanted, and she seemed to rule his destiny at this point. Of course, the strange claim by Sampson that his strength was derived from his hair is silly. If he lost any strength from the cutting of his hair, he soon regained it in pulling the grindstone around and toppling the temple. It's strange that his head wasn't shaved, to keep him weak.In this period , Victor Mature was the ideal person to play Sampson, despite the problems DeMille had with him. He was beefy, well spoken, and definitely looked Mediterranean. This was the first of a string of films over the next 5 years rooted in the ancient world that Mature would star in...Hedy Lamarr was perfect as Delilah, although I don't consider her quite the beauty some others do. She also had a Semitic look, aside from her blue eyes. The other major actors were also good. Angela Lansburg didn't have that much to do.

ma-cortes Spectacular hokey Bible epic produced and directed by the great Cecil B Mille concerning about Samson (Victor Mature won the role over Burt Lancaster) and Delilah (Hedy Lamarr , among most serious candidates for the role were Jean Simmons , Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth) who plans to seduce him into revealing his secret and then to betray him to the Philistine leader, the Saran (George Sanders) , as she robs Samson his incredible strength . The story of Samson from chapters 13-16 of The Book of Judges , but being based on a novel titled "Judge and Fool, aka Samson the Nazarite, Samson & Prelude to Delilah" . As it is the pattern throughout the book of Judges , the Israelites again turned away from God after 40 years of peace brought by Deborah's victory over Canaan and were allowed to be oppressed by the neighboring Midianites , Amalekites and Philistines . According to the biblical account , Samson was given supernatural strength by God in order to combat his enemies Philistines ,and perform heroic feats such as killing a lion , slaying an entire army with only the jawbone of an ass, and destroying a pagan temple . Samson had two vulnerabilities, however : his attraction to untrustworthy women such as Delilah and his hair, without which he was powerless . These vulnerabilities ultimately proved fatal for him. One day the Philistine leaders assembled in a temple for a religious sacrifice to Dagon, one of their most important deities, for having delivered Samson into their hands. They summon Samson so that people can gather on the roof to watch. Once inside the temple, Samson, his hair having grown long again, asks the servant who is leading him to the temple's central pillars if he may lean against them . He pulled the two pillars together , and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people . Thus he killed many more as he died than while he lived .¨Samson and Dalilah¨ remains an enjoyable and entertaining picture with great camp performances that still looks fine today . This dumb but fun film contains breathtaking outdoors and indoors , a lot of extras and with glorious paper-Maché sets on the temple of Dagon ; in fact , it was far and away the top-grossing film of 1949 . Victor Mature is surprisingly nice as Samson along with a young Angela Lansbury as Semadar and a cynical Saran of Gaza well incarnated by George Sanders . Victor Mature as Sansone or Samson is acceptable though his famous fight against a philistine army is hopelessly phony . For the scene in which Samson kills the lion , Victor Mature refused to wrestle a tame movie lion . The scene shows a stunt man wrestling the tame lion, intercut with closeups of Mature wrestling a lion skin . Hedy Lamarr supplies biggest surprise by playing a tempter and beautiful vixen Delilah . Being a lavish production here appears several actors usual from Hollywoood pictures such as Cecil B DeMille's long-time associated Henry Wilcoxon , Julia Faye , Fay Holden , Moroni Olsen , Mike Mazurski , George Reeves and a sympathetic boy , Russ Tamblyn , as Saul . Spectacular and climactic sequences in the Temple of Dagon , it took two tries to bring it down . During the first time, some of the dynamite charges in the miniature temple failed to go off on schedule , as the temple had to be rebuilt, and the second attempt was more successful. Colorful and luxurious cinematography by usual Hollywood director of photography George Barnes . Victor Young's lush background music, nominated for an Academy Award in the competition for 1950, would become his penultimate best-score recognition . The motion picture was realized in Cecil B DeMille's ordinary style ; with a $28 million gross domestically , the film was Paramount's biggest hit since DeMille's silent version of Ten commandments (1923). Cecil produced and directed 70 films and was involved in many more . Many of his films were romantic sexual comedies , as he is supposed to have believed that Americans were curious only about money and sex . His best-known were biblical epics that further established him as the symbol of Hollywood such as King of Kings (1927), The ten Commandments (1923) , The Crusades (1935) and , of course , Charlton Heston's Ten commandments (1956). Other films about this Biblic figure are the followings : ¨Gedeon and Samson¨ (1965) by Francisco Perez Dolz with Anton Geesink and Rosalba Neri ; Samson and Delilah (1984) by Lee Philips with Anthony Hamilton , Belinda Bauer , Max Von Sidow ; Samson and Delilah (1996) by Nicolas Roeg with Eric Thal , Elizabeth Hurley , Dennis Hooper ; Samson et Dalila (2002) with Plácido Domingo and Olga Borodina .

judy t This is the film DeMille was making when Norma Desmond visited the Paramount sound stage in 'Sunset Blvd'. That little reference was enough to lure me into watching Samson and Delilah.I've always thought Lamarr was the most beautiful woman in films, (though she looked pretty ordinary in 'Ecstasy', before MGM got its hands on her), but she was wooden, with an annoying accent, which somewhat cancelled out the magnetism of her beauty. But in this film she's animated and alluring and believable as Delilah, the wicked seductress, who late in the film finds her heartless self in love. In love with Victor, who is perfectly cast as the barrel-chested strongman, Samson. Technicolor biblical extravaganzas do not require the acting skills of Mr and Mrs Olivier, and both leads were up to the task of delivering their lines and hitting their marks with precision. Hedy was 35 during production and physically in her prime, wearing gorgeous figure revealing costumes that not one woman in a thousand could wear, and that includes Lana Turner, even more scantily clad in that colossal biblical bore, The Prodigal.The Victor and the Lion scene looked like the real thing to me. I kept a close eye on that lion and not once did it look like a stuffed rug. My compliments to the stuntman and the well-trained Oscar-worthy lion.As for the "ridiculous" dialogue, I heard none. DeMille's narrative at the film's beginning states the theme - man's yearning for freedom - something the 1949 audience, 4 years after the end of WW2, responded to. Also, the spiritual message came through without bombast, and when Victor talked to or about his God, he was believable and moving. And I was mesmerized by the seduction scene in the desert tent - walls of colored silks, satins, ala Valentino - and the to/fro conversation as they moved about the tent. Yes, Delilah lured her man with words. I've always wondered about the biblical account where Delilah tried and failed multiple times to get Samson to reveal the secret of his strength. Didn't he know what she was up to? How could he be so dumb? Well, this scene, expertly written, shows us how she did it, and No, it wasn't because Samson was a knucklehead.The temple destruction scene is powerful because of DeMille's skill in conception and editing, allowing the scene to build slowly, as ever so gradually cracks appear in the columns. What a triumphant, emotionally satisfying ending.George Sanders, always a treat to watch, is given witty, pithy dialogue by the script writers which, combined with his customary subtlety, showed that he understood Delilah's character. He's an older, wiser man waiting patiently for his Scarlett to grow up and know herself. The writers give Lamarr, too, ample opportunities to show the twists and turns in her character development. All in all, this is a terrific popcorn movie for a rainy Sunday afternoon.