Despite a long, groundbreaking career in film, a stunning box-office record, and a sure hand with crowd scenes that will probably never be equaled so long as CGI continues to reign, Cecil B. DeMille never quite seems to get his due as a filmmaker. There is a certain coolness factor to be had in championing Preston Sturges or Howard Hawks. Not so for the man who said, “Every time I make a picture, the critics’ estimate of American public taste goes down ten percent.”

DeMille’s movies were, with few exceptions, brash and almost childishly direct in their attempts to grab your attention. Something big always has to happen, whether it’s the parting of the Red Sea (The Ten Commandments) or a battle with a giant squid (Reap the Wild Wind) or a crowd of party guests parachuting off a zeppelin (Madam Satan). The morality of DeMille’s films often just barely kept up with the titillation factor; DeMille had no problem showing off Claudette Colbert in a bath of asses’ milk so long as he could tack on a vindication of good Christian values by the end of the movie. But DeMille was always unfazed by criticism, proclaiming that his movies were made to please the American public. He was a showman and proud of it.

For me, the ne plus ultra of DeMille-ism, the movie that combines his worst and best instincts as a filmmaker would have to be 1949’s Samson and Delilah. DeMille had already made several famous Biblical films in the silent era and early 30s but this was the moneymaker that set off the craze for religious epics that dominated the ‘50s. Samson and Delilah was a vindication for DeMille, solid proof that Americans still wanted to see “SIN” spelled out in capital letters. They wanted to see Hedy Lamarr bring Victor Mature to his knees in gorgeous Technicolor and to see Mature bring down the Temple of Dagon for the climax. It’s easy to look back and be a little embarrassed at the popularity of movies like this one. They’re so simple in their intentions, so loudly determined to wow you, and so stilted in their line delivery. Yet for me, Samson and Delilah, while guilty of all those crimes, is pure pleasure from start to finish.

Looking atthe film from a distance of over fifty years, it’s startling to see a Biblical epic as light on its feet at this one. It’s lively, funny, and moves at a reasonable pace. Samson and Delilah may not be giving His Girl Friday competition any time soon, but compare it to the pacing and stodgy seriousness of the other Biblical epics of the time, which could charitably be compared to snails dancing a waltz in a bowl of molasses. DeMille knows what audiences are paying for and he delivers it to them, offering up a gleeful wallow in lust and vengeance that feels like the direct ancestor to generations of TV melodramas.

Samson and Delilah is never boring. This is partly due to the script, which attains a kind of bonkers brilliance whenever the characters have to open their mouths. “Delilah, what a dimpled dragon you can be.” “Your lion has become a mouse—changed by the magic of love!” “Your arms were quicksand, your kiss was death!” At times, the movie will try to switch up this faux-poetic speech with something a little more heartfelt, as if to remind us that Samson and Delilah were really just people like us. Except that it’s even more tin-eared at doing that; the high point is Hedy Lamarr staring dreamily out over a chlorinated pool and murmuring, “Come with me to Egypt, we’ll not be Danite and Philistine there, only Samson and Delilah.” It’s like the anti-drinking game, really. Just try to find one single line of dialogue that sounds as if a human being could utter it. Just you try.

To a certain extent, the greatness of Samson and Delilah rests on its epic finale, in which Samson calls forth his God-given power to bring down the Temple of Dagon, but the movie’s enjoyable throughout. DeMille moves swiftly through the various incidents of the Biblical Samson, establishing him as a fatally impetuous, pleasure-seeking brawler, the kind of man who’s quick enough in a fight, but unable to withstand even the most blatant manipulation. As played by Victor Mature, Samson is only just smart enough to realize what an idiot he’s being. He falls in love with the beautiful Semadar (played by Angela Lansbury), daughter of a wealthy Philistine, but the wedding ends in destruction and death due to the callous cruelty of the Philistines. However, Samson doesn’t just make enemies with the Philistines; he also incurs the wrath of Semadar’s younger sister Delilah (Hedy Lamarr), who swears to kill him. Or love him. Really, she just keeps switching back and forth. Delilah may be clever enough to seduce the powerful Philistine Saran (George Sanders, looking as amused as ever) and convince him to help her in her quest, but clarity of purpose is not her strong suit.

Returning to this film, I was surprised to see that Victor Mature was actually much better than I remembered and that Hedy Lamarr was so much worse. There’s only so much Mature can do to maintain his dignity when he has to wrestle a lion skin or explain to Delilah with great seriousness why his hair is the source of his power (“Among my people they say that the strongest ram has the heaviest wool”), but he’s actually fairly adept at letting his own regular-guy normalcy shine through the script.        

Hedy Lamarr on the other hand, delivers a wonderful, totally insane bit of bad acting that makes it impossible to look away whenever she’s on screen. I have to suspect that the actress once acclaimed as one of the most beautiful women in movies never once in her life had to seduce a man by doing anything more than standing there and breathing. Because when she’s actually called upon to play a seductress, the result is a twitchy, flailing, nostrils-blaring opus of acting that would make even Norma Desmond raise an eyebrow. She cannot sit still; every other second she’s twining herself sinuously around a pillar or cooing into Samson’s ear. At one point, she has to stand next to the burning ruins of her home and it plays like a Scarlett O’Hara parody, with Lamarr calling down vengeance on the man she loves, while her servant helpfully reminds her, “All you have in the world is ashes and death.”


I’m building up Samson and Delilah as a camp classic, but I would hesitate to use those words for a movie that seems so deliberately what it is. Camp so often implies ineptitude or mistaken intentions and the movie is really too smooth and cohesive for such a label.

Visually, the film is beautiful, bright and gaudy. The colors are incredibly vivid, but unlike other Technicolor movies such as Leave Her to Heaven or Black Narcissus, where the backgrounds and lighting were just as important and richly textured as the costumes and close-ups, Samson and Delilah pretty much uses the color to display its Oscar-winning costumes. Designer Edith Head takes her cue from her director and recreates a Biblical world so lustrous and ornate that everything looks as if it had just been freshly assembled five minutes ago. Absolutely nothing looks as if it had ever been lived in. The Philistine soldiers walk around in burnished armor so shiny, you could use it for dental surgery. The crowning moment of costuming glory would have to go to Hedy Lamarr’s peacock dress, with a train of actual peacock feathers that no doubt weighed a ton and shed like mad. Still, it’s impossible to take your eyes off it.

For the film’s finale, Cecil B. DeMille delivers one of the best set pieces of his career: Samson pulling down the Temple of Dagon. The special effects used here still look pretty impressive today and the crash is truly epic. But more importantly, DeMille actually manages to find some real, genuine emotion in those final scenes. Delilah, having realized that she’s delivered the only person she loves to a fate worse than death, comes forward to comfort him as he’s chained and blind and humiliated. Samson, in spite of everything, admits that he will still love her past death. He warns her away but Delilah ardently embraces her fate, choosing to stand by him as he wrests up the pillars and brings down the giant temple. It’s surprisingly emotional for such a silly film, almost nihilistic. The lovers, having utterly tormented each other through the whole movie, only find glory and happiness in their mutual destruction.

Samson and Delilah may not be subtle. It may not be nuanced or articulate. But I always find it to be an incredibly artful and irresistible piece of filmmaking. I can’t help but watch it every time it comes on. The highest-grossing film of 1950, it may not have been the best of the year, but it certainly is a smashing good time.

Aubyn Eli blogs about color movies-and a whole of black-and-white ones-at The Girl with the White Parasol