Samson and Delilah

DeMille!

A while back I lamented the fact that deMille's 'Samson and Delilah' was unavailable on DVD, at least in North America. This is still the case, but a copy of it has surfaced, regrettably seemly stamped from a VHS original.

No matter.

Old Cecil was a surviver from the golden age of U.S. silent cimema, and that's one of the things I love about (most) of his movies: it shows. Everyone strikes theatrical poses, and man oh man the dialogue.

There is one laugh out loud scene in which Samson discovers his soon to be dead wife (and non Jewish wife tsk tsk) Angela Lansbury has betrayed him by giving away the answer to a riddle he'd posed her kin folk to fuck them up.

"If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle"

My first thought was, how did that get past 1949 censors? Easy silly, it's in the Bible!



DeMille's fascination with the opulent is in evidence, as here where two men discuss "gauss".

"Bring it over to the light"



Our stars, Victor Mature and Headly Lamarr.

That's Hedy Lamarr!

Sorry Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr, from the 1940's Eyebrow School of Acting. One two three, and Arch!



She is beautiful in this film, photographed in Techicolor.

Can't act her way out of a paper bag.

But who cares? DeMille!

Above all this though, this film is famous for its closing sequence, the granddaddy of all special effect shots (at least post WWII)

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Destruction of the Temple of Dagon.

Delilah!