Am I Missing Something?

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is a great movie, utterly impossible not to like. A hero with flaws betrayed by a woman who later has regrets and wants to atone. Victor Mature plays Samson and Hedy Lamarr Delilah. The chemistry between the two is immediately apparent. This drives the entire story and provides its emotional power. The story itself is intense. It is about political oppression and redemption. Lamarr gives a powerful performance as Delilah. Her character undergoes a dramatic transition from sinister vixen to s strong and dignified woman. By the end of the movie, she is a figure worthy of admiration. Although both Samson and Delilah are principal characters, the movie ultimately is about Delilah, the agent throughout Samson's destiny is realized. This movie is outstanding.

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 .

It's 1000BC. Samson (Victor Mature) is a Danite Hebrew in the village of Zorah under the domineering rule of the Philistines. Samson is in love with Semadar (Angela Lansbury) from a wealthy Philistine family. Her younger sister Delilah (Hedy Lamarr) is infatuated with the brute. He kills a lion with his bare hands while with Delilah but Lord Saran (George Sanders) doesn't believe them. He is awarded a hunter's prize after beating Garmiskar in wrestling, but he takes Semadar's hand in marriage instead. Semadar was originally promised to Ahtur (Henry Wilcoxon) and he's not happy. Ahtur brings his 30 warriors to the wedding. Samson has a riddle and makes a bet for 30 cloaks with Ahtur. The jealous Delilah pushes Ahtur, and he frightens Semadar into betraying Samson. Samson robs passing Philistines to pay the debt, but Delilah's scheming isn't finished. She convinces her father to marry Semadar off to Ahtur while trying to get Samson for herself. It all crumbles as Samson battles Ahtur and his 30 men. Samson escapes but Semadar is killed. He burns everything down and Delilah vows vengeance against Samson.The Technicolor looks brilliant. There is a nice stunt wrestling a real lion early on. Of course, Victor Mature is wrestling a stuffed lion. He is a big guy and he plays Samson as a self assured brute. The acting is not subtle. Hedy Lamarr is playing the vixen for all her worth. Her acting is extremely broad. This is a grand epic from Cecil B. DeMille. It's all very old fashion in everything from tone to style to acting. I doubt that I should count that against it. It is simply an epic of a compelling biblical story.

While having some very major flaws, this is a thoroughly decent biblical epic on the story of Samson and Delilah. It is nicely filmed, with lovely costumes, nice sets and good cinematography and has a rousing score. Also the acing is not bad at all, Victor Mature is a dashing Samson and Hedy Lamarr pretty much steals the film as the beautifully captivating Delilah, it somehow reminded me of Rita Hayworth in Salome. George Sanders proves here he is the epitome of calculation and world-weariness, and while Angela Lansbury is good she has been better. Plus the final scene with the temple coming down is brilliantly staged and serves as the highlight of the film. However, the script is not always that great, neither is the pacing which is quite slow or the direction which is disappointingly stodgy. Overall though, Samson and Delilah isn't bad, it could've been better, but it was decent. 7/10 Bethany Cox