"Samson and Delilah" Biblical drama film 1949 Hedy Lamarr Victor Mature directed by Cecil B. DeMille Movie Review Modern Screen magazine January 1950 Κινηματογραφικά

 

Samson and Delilah

Victor Mature Hedy Lamarr  

Biblical drama film 1949

directed by Cecil B. DeMille

Movie Review by Christopher Kane

Modern Screen magazine January 1950

Κινηματογραφικά

 

 

 

 

 

  Hedy Lamarr is the tempting Delilah and Victor Mature is Samson, her muscular victim, in Cecil B. De Mille’s spectacular Samson and Delilah.    

 

 

 

 

Samson and Delilah

 

   The biggest, and I do mean biggest, attraction for the movie-goer this month is Paramount's Samson and Delilah. It's tremendous, impressive, and beautiful to look at. I thought it was a lot of fun.

   Part Holy Bible, part C. B. De Mille, and Technicolored in the bargain, Samson and Delilah gives you a lot of show for your money. Victor Mature plays Samson, the reckless strong man who falls in love with a beautiful Philistine woman. Samson is a Danite (the Danites are cruelly taxed and oppressed by the Philistines) so when he breaks the news to his family, there are no cheers of joy. But love is love, and Samson so terrifies and impresses his future father-in-law, to say nothing of the Philistine leader (George Sanders) when he, Samson, breaks a lion into pieces with his bare hands, that he’s promised the lady of his choice (Angela Lansbury). Still, there’s many a slip. Angela marries another, is foully murdered, etc., etc. and Samson starts tearinc up houses and setting fields on fire, in very colorful fashion.

   Well, the Philistines set another lady, Delilah (Hedy Lamarr), to find out the secret of Samson's strength, and she does just that. Everything he eats goes to his head. Without his hair, he’s an average mortal.

   According to the Bible, Delilah had no special motive for betraying Samson. She was just a good Philistine. In C. B.'s version, she’s Angela Lansbury’s younger sister, and Samson's scorned her for love of Angela, and she’s never forgotten it. A couple of times she almost forgets it, but then there’s Samson’s hometown girl, Miriam (Olive Deering), who gets on her nerves (I think Miriam’s a De Mille invention, too) and in the end, Delilah just doesn’t trust the man to be faithful to her. So she turns him over to the authorities. She feels awful when Samson‘s blinded, though, and she helps him make the walls come tumbling down (once his hair's long again, his strength is restored) and ali the Philistines are killed, killed, killed. So are Samson and Delilah. In case I sounded carping about C. B.’s inventing a bit of plot here and there, I didn’t mean it that way. To make a  full-length spectacle out of a couple of pages in the Bible requires some doing, and he did it.

 

 

Hedy Lamarr

 

 

 

 

 

Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr

 

 

   

 

Samson and Delilah (1949)

σκηνοθεσία:

Cecil B. De Mille

σενάριο:

Jesse Lasky Jr.

Fredric M. Frank

Harold Lamb

μουσική:

Victor Young

φωτογραφία:

George Barnes

έγχρωμον Technicolor

διάρκεια: 134 λεπτά

Γυρίσματα:

Αλγερία

Μαρόκο

Καλιφόρνια

Paramount Pictures

Πρεμιέρα: Νέα Υόρκη 21 Δεκ 1949

Oι ηθοποιοί:

Hedy Lamarr (Delilah)

Victor Mature (Samson)

George Sanders (Saran of Gaza)

Angela Lansbury (Semadar)

Henry Wilcoxon (Prince Arthur) 

Olive Deering (Miriam)

Fay Holden (Hazeleponit)

Julia Faye (Hisham)

 

   

 

 

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[ ανάρτηση 2 Φεβρουαρίου 2024 :

Cecil B. DeMille

“ Samson and Delilah ” (1949)

Hedy Lamarr

Victor Mature

Movie review by Christopher Kane

Modern Screen magazine January 1950

Κινηματογραφικά ]