Samson and Delilah (1949 film)

Samson and Delilah is a 1949 American epic romantic biblical drama film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille and released by Paramount Pictures. It depicts the biblical story of Samson, a strongman whose secret lies in his uncut hair, and his love for Delilah, the woman who seduces him, discovers his secret, and then betrays him to the Philistines. It stars Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr in the title roles, George Sanders as the Saran, Angela Lansbury as Semadar, and Henry Wilcoxon as Prince Ahtur.

Pre-production on Samson and Delilah began as early as 1935, when Harold Lamb wrote an original film treatment based on chapters 13–16 of the biblical Book of Judges. Production was postponed for a decade. DeMille also bought the film rights to Vladimir Jabotinsky's 1926 novel Samson the Nazirite, and the final screenplay was written by Jesse L. Lasky Jr. and Fredric M. Frank. Principal photography officially commenced in 1948.

Upon its release, the film was praised for its Technicolor cinematography, lead performances, costumes, sets, and innovative special effects. After premiering in New York City on December 21, 1949, Samson and Delilah opened in Los Angeles on January 13, 1950. A massive commercial success, it became the highest-grossing film of 1950, and the third highest-grossing film ever at the time of its release. Of its five Academy Award nominations, the film won two for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. In 1952, DeMille won the Film français Grand Prix for Best Foreign Film of 1951.

Plot

Samson, a Danite Hebrew placed under Nazirite vows from birth by his mother Hazelelponit, is the leader and protector of the Danites, who are under Philistine rule. He plans to marry a Philistine woman named Semadar, who is also being courted by Ahtur, the military governor of Dan. While sneaking at Semadar's house before a Philistine lion hunt, Samson meets Semadar's younger sister, Delilah, who is enamored with him. When Samson is left behind by the hunting party, Delilah offers to help him reach the hunting spot first. They ride there together and are accosted by a young lion, whom Samson kills with his bare hands. The Philistine entourage arrives along with the Saran of Gaza and are told by Delilah of Samson's feat. After proving his strength once more by beating the Saran's champion, Samson asks for the Saran's blessing in taking Semadar as his wife. The Saran accepts, disappointing both Delilah and Ahtur.

At the wedding feast, Samson asks his guests a riddle based on his fight with the lion for a wager of thirty garments. Angered by the riddle's difficulty and after being coaxed by Delilah, the guests have Ahtur threaten Semadar to get the answer out of Samson. Semadar succeeds, and the guests humiliate Samson with the answer before the wedding’s conclusion. In anger, Samson goes out and attacks thirty Philistines to strip them of their garments and pay the wager, only to find upon his return that Semadar’s father Tubal had married her off to Ahtur. Tubal offers Delilah as a replacement, but Samson rejects her. When Samson attacks Ahtur in Semadar's chambers, a fight ensues, resulting in the deaths of Semadar and Tubal. Samson swears revenge and leaves to start burning the Philistine fields. An embittered Delilah also vows vengeance for Samson's rejection and the death of her family.

Now a hunted man, Samson continues his vendetta against the Philistines by raiding their caravans. In response, the Saran imposes heavy taxes on the Danites, promising to lift them only if they give up Samson. This works, and the frustrated Danites hand over Samson to Ahtur and a large regiment of Philistine troops. During a stopover en route to Gaza, Samson prays for strength and rips apart his bonds. He topples Ahtur's war chariot and uses a donkey's jawbone to club numerous Philistine soldiers to death.

As the Saran and the Philistine lords ponder how to defeat Samson, Delilah comes up with the idea of seducing him to learn the secret of his superhuman strength and deliver him for punishment in exchange for a large payment of silver. After encountering Samson in the valley of Sorek, Delilah spends days forming a romance with him until she eventually learns that his hair is the source of his strength. She asks him to run away with her but is foiled by the arrival of Saul and Miriam, Samson's friends, who tell him that his parents have been captured and tortured by the Philistines. Samson prepares to leave with them, but Delilah subdues him with spiked wine and cuts off his hair. When the weakened Samson awakes, he is captured by Ahtur and the Philistines, who blind him and put him to slave work.

Delilah relishes Samson's downfall at first but becomes remorseful upon finding out that he was blinded. After being tormented by her guilt for weeks, she decides to make amends by visiting Samson in prison, where they learn that his strength has returned. After the two of them reconcile, Delilah offers to spirit Samson away, but he learns that he will be brought to the temple of Dagon the next day as part of his public humiliation and torture. He decides to stay and warns Delilah not to come to the temple.

Despite Samson's warning, Delilah attends the feast at the temple, where Samson is brought out in front of a massive Philistine crowd. Miriam arrives with Saul and begs the Saran and Delilah in vain for Samson's freedom. Under the pretense of humiliating him, Delilah guides Samson to the temple's two main pillars at his behest. Once he stands between them, he tells Delilah to flee, but she remains, unseen by him, as he prays for strength and pushes the pillars apart. The pillars give way and the temple collapses, burying Samson, Delilah, the Saran, and hundreds of Philistines under the rubble. Saul and Miriam mourn Samson's death, remarking that "men will tell his story for a thousand years."

Cast

Hedy Lamarr as Delilah
Victor Mature as Samson
George Sanders as The Saran of Gaza
Angela Lansbury as Semadar
Henry Wilcoxon as Prince Ahtur
Olive Deering as Miriam
Fay Holden as Hazelelponit
Julia Faye as Hisham
Russ Tamblyn as Saul
William Farnum as Tubal
Lane Chandler as Teresh
Moroni Olsen as Targil
Francis McDonald as Storyteller
Wee Willie Davis as Garmiskar
John Miljan as Lesh Lakish
Arthur Q. Bryan as Fat Philistine Merchant
Laura Elliot as Spectator
Victor Varconi as Lord of Ashdod
John Parrish as Lord of Gath
Frank Wilcox as Lord of Ekron
Russell Hicks as Lord of Ashkelon
Boyd Davis as First Priest
Fritz Leiber as Lord Sharif
Mike Mazurki as Leader of Philistine Soldiers
Davison Clark as Merchant Prince
George Reeves as Wounded Messenger
Pedro de Cordoba as Bar Simon
Frank Reicher as Village Barber
Colin Tapley as Prince
Charles Evans as Manoah (uncredited)
Harry Woods as Gammad (uncredited)
Gordon Richards as Guide (uncredited)
Cecil B. DeMille as Narrator (uncredited)
Tanner the Lion as Lion (uncredited)

Production

Development

thumb|[[Cecil B. DeMille (seated, center) on the set of the film with cinematographer George Barnes behind him.]]

In late March 1934, Miriam Hopkins and Henry Wilcoxon were said to be DeMille's choices to play Samson and Delilah. In April, Paramount Pictures announced that its next "big picture" and DeMille's follow-up to Cleopatra (1934) would be Samson and Delilah. The film was eventually postponed and DeMille decided to produce and direct The Crusades (1935).

In May 1935, Motion Picture Daily informed that Samson and Delilah was "slated to start five weeks after the completion of The Crusades." Paramount bought the film rights to the music and libretto of the 1877 opera Samson et Dalila. Jeanie MacPherson was also hired to do research and collaborate with Lamb on the screenplay. In July, Parsons reported that the director wanted to borrow James Cagney from Warner Bros. for the role of Samson. In November, actresses Dolores del Río, Paulette Goddard, and Joan Crawford were suggested for the part of Delilah, a role Grace Bradley wanted to play and also campaigned for.

By February 1936, DeMille had plans for two new films, Samson and Delilah and The Plainsman, and was also negotiating a new contract with Paramount. He considered filming Samson and Delilah in the new three-strip Technicolor. In April, DeMille thought dancer Sally Rand could be "the perfect beautiful brute" as Delilah. In October, after the release of The Plainsman, DeMille signed a new contract with Paramount and said he was making a deal with Charles Bickford for Samson and had asked Claudette Colbert to play Delilah. In November, DeMille and Paramount planned to film Samson and Delilah the following year. In December, the film was "indefinitely" shelved and DeMille started pre-production work on The Buccaneer.

Nine years later, on August 15, 1946, DeMille publicly stated that Samson and Delilah would be his next project after Unconquered (1947). DeMille later recalled in his autobiography that the Paramount executives had doubts about financing a "Sunday school tale." They approved the project when DeMille showed them a sketch by artist Dan Groesbeck depicting a "big, brawny" Samson and a "slim and ravishingly attractive" Delilah. He initially planned to film it in 1947,

In spring of 1948, DeMille hired illustrator Henry Clive to paint the "ideal Delilah" on canvas. He had studied paintings of Delilah by Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, Gustave Doré, and Solomon Joseph Solomon, but wanted her to look modern.

Writing

Samson and Delilah is based on chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16 of the Book of Judges. These four chapters tell the story of Samson, one of the judges of Israel. Samson's origin and Nazarite status are described in chapter 13. An angel announced Samson's birth to his mother: "For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." Although chapter 13 is not depicted in the film, it is alluded to when Samson says, "A long time ago, I was dedicated to Him. Many of the vows, I've broken, but one I've kept." In chapter 14, Samson falls in love with and marries an unnamed Philistine woman from Timnath, but after she provokes Samson's anger by revealing the answer to his riddle, her father gives her to Samson's friend. In chapter 15, Samson's father-in-law, the Timnite, offers his unnamed younger daughter as a new bride, but Samson rejects her and burns the crops of the Philistines; the Philistines retaliate and burn Samson's wife and her father. In chapter 16, it is said that Samson "loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah", but she discovers the secret of his great strength and betrays him to the Philistines.

Harold Lamb began writing an early version of the screenplay in 1935. For more than ten years, DeMille struggled to find "the one thread that would tie together the separate incidents in Samson's life as it is recorded in the Bible." He found it in Samson the Nazarite, a "little-known" novel by Russian-Jewish author Vladimir Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky combined Delilah and the younger sister of Samson's wife into one person. DeMille wrote that this "simple, plausible, and entirely legitimate device" turned the Samson narrative into a drama and also gave Delilah "a motive to destroy him, more powerful, more burning, than the merely mercenary one of the bribe offered her by the Philistines." He bought the screen rights to the book.

On June 19, 1948, the press announced that DeMille chose Hedy Lamarr. According to co-star Henry Wilcoxon, Lamarr (who was of Jewish descent, as was DeMille himself on his mother's side) won the role of Delilah after DeMille saw her film The Strange Woman (1946). Erskine Johnson revealed that Lamarr's portrayal of Tondelayo in White Cargo (1942) ultimately convinced DeMille to hire her. Maria Montez wanted to play Delilah and was reportedly "so disappointed" that Lamarr got the role. Yvonne De Carlo "cried into her tea cup" when Lamarr was cast and said, "[DeMille] told me two years ago that when he made the movie I would get the part." He was content with Lamarr's performance as Delilah, describing it as "more than skin-deep." He also described her as "a gazelle–incapable of a clumsy or wrong move", and she would flirtatiously refer to herself as "Delilah" and DeMille as her "Samson."

left|thumb|Angela Lansbury plays Samson's "golden-haired" wife and Delilah's older sister, Semadar

In July 1948, DeMille gave the role of Semadar to Phyllis Calvert, but she relinquished the part due to illness. Therefore, DeMille cast Angela Lansbury in the role in September. When Lawrence Perry of The Pittsburgh Press interviewed Lansbury on September 24, 1949, he told her that the Bible does not describe Delilah as having a sister. Lansbury replied, "Anyway, if Delilah didn't have a sister, Mr. DeMille has supplied one." But DeMille told her, "You're too pretty and you're too young", and Rogers was cast as a Philistine spectator in the temple scene and credited in the film as Laura Elliot.

Filming

Principal photography began on October 4, 1948 and ended on December 22, 1948. The scenes involving the plowed field were shot on January 4, 1949, and added scenes and closeups were shot between January 18 and January 21, 1949. In February 1949, the rough cut of the film ran over three hours.

In late October 1948, Hedda Hopper visited the set of the film and described it as "harmonious, peaceful, and full of love." She reported that DeMille awarded Mature one of his special "50-cent pieces" for "doing a dramatic scene well." Mature said DeMille eventually found his retorts amusing: "Didn't know how to take me, at first. He just stood there. Now he laughs." "Vic was leary about tangling with the critter," Lamarr confided to Hedda Hopper in December 1948. "I told him, 'Don't be afraid. I'm not, and I'm even wearing a red dress.' He replied, 'You've got your animals mixed. This is a lion, not a bull.' When he started closing in on the lion, the cameraman shouted, 'If he jumps, Vic, try and stay in the lights.'" Mature himself later recounted the moment:

In late December 1948, the scene where Samson is blinded by the Philistines was filmed. The "red-hot" sword prop used had a blade made of opaque plastic with a red neon bulb inside the tip. The tub of coals from which the sword was drawn originally had real coals but DeMille replaced it because the coals did not look real on camera. The new tub contained pieces of colored glass resembling coals with electric lights glowing underneath them.

thumb|200px|The 37-foot tall model of the temple of [[Dagon.]]

The film's special effects were supervised by Gordon Jennings. The most spectacular special effect in the film is the toppling of the temple of Dagon, the god of the Philistines. It is the penultimate scene in the film, cost $150,000, and took a year to shoot. The bottom portion of the temple was constructed full-scale. A separate 37-foot high model with a 17-foot high Dagon statue was built for the photographic effects. The model was destroyed three times to shoot it through different camera angles. Footage of the full-scale set was merged with footage of the scale model using a "motion repeater system" fabricated by Paramount, which enabled the exact repetition of camera moves.

By July 1949, the film had been completely edited and was awaiting small touches concerning the music score and dubbing of sound effects.

Connection with Sunset Boulevard

DeMille's legendary status led him to play himself in Billy Wilder's film noir Sunset Boulevard (1950). The film is about a fictional silent film star named Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson) who, no longer active, once worked as an actress for DeMille. For the scene in which Desmond visits DeMille at Paramount, an actual set of Samson and Delilah was reconstructed to show the director at work. The first day scheduled to shoot the scene was May 23, 1949, months after filming on Samson and Delilah had ended. After the scene was shot in a total of four days, Wilder patted DeMille on the back and humorously told him, "Very good, my boy. Leave your name with my secretary. I may have a small part for you in my next picture." Wilder later said that DeMille "took direction terrifically. He loved it. He understood it. He was very subtle."

Release

Samson and Delilah received its televised world premiere on December 21, 1949, at two of New York City's Broadway theatres, the Paramount and the Rivoli, in order to "accommodate the 7,000,000 movie-goers in the greater New York area." The film eventually went into general release on January 13, 1950.

It was successfully re-released in November 1959 following the box office triumph of Joseph E. Levine's Hercules (1958).

Critical response

thumb|[[George Barnes (cinematographer)|George Barnes's cinematography was nominated for both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award.]]

Samson and Delilah received rave reviews upon its release in 1949. Showmen's Trade Review wrote that the film "bids fair to stand as this veteran showman's most impressive and magnificent spectacle since that history-making 1923 religious epic [The Ten Commandments]." A review in Harrison's Reports commented: "Mr. DeMille has succeeded, not only in keeping the story authentic, but also in presenting it in a highly entertaining way. Its combination of spectacularity and human interest will grip the attention of all movie-goers." The Modern Screen reviewer remarked, "It's tremendous, impressive, and beautiful to look at." Boxoffice considered it the "most prodigious spectacle ever conceived," while The Film Daily stated that it "[s]tands monumental alongside any contender." The Exhibitor, a trade magazine, declared: "This will be classed with the big films of all time."

Box office

Samson and Delilah was enormously successful, earning $9 million in theatrical rentals in its initial release, thus making it the highest-grossing film of 1950. At the time of its release, it was the third highest-grossing film ever, behind Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). It was the second most popular film at the British box office that year.

During its theatrical reissue, in 1959, it earned another $2.5 million in distributor rentals.

Accolades

Competitive awards

{| class="wikitable"

! Award

! Category

! Recipient(s)

! Result

| rowspan="5" | Academy Award

| Best Picture of the Month (February 1950)

| George Barnes

|Christian Herald and Protestant Motion Picture Council Award

| Best Picture of the Month (December 1949)

| Cecil B. DeMille

| Film français Grand Prix

| Best Pictures of the Month (February 1950)

| The Hasty Heart, Intruder in the Dust, and Samson and Delilah

| Picturegoer Gold Medal

| Best Actress

| Hedy Lamarr

Special awards

thumb|The film's [[Academy Award for Best Costume Design|Academy Award-winning costumes include this peacock gown and cape designed by Edith Head and worn by Delilah (Lamarr) at the temple of Dagon.]]

In December 1949, DeMille was awarded the Parents magazine medal for "thirty-five years of devotion to research in the production of historical pictures culminating in his greatest achievement, Samson and Delilah."

In March 1950, Samson and Delilah was named one of the Best Pictures of 1949 at Looks Annual Film Awards. DeMille received the All Industry Achievement Award for the film.

Polls

4th Best Picture of 1951, ninth annual poll of The Country Gentleman magazine

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – Nominated
2005: AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – Nominated
2008: AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Epic Film

Home media

In 1979, Paramount Home Video released the film on VHS and Betamax as a two-tape set. The VHS was released again in 1981 as a single-tape release, and then again in 1988 and 1990.

MCA DiscoVision was originally set to release the film on LaserDisc as part of a set of titles from Paramount Pictures in 1978, but their version was scrapped for unknown reasons. The first LaserDisc edition of Samson and Delilah was finally released in 1982. Ten years later, Paramount released a new LaserDisc edition that featured digital video transferred from a new 35mm interpositive of the original 3-strip Technicolor negatives. DiscoVision's transfer, however, was used in the 1979 VHS and 1980s home media releases.

In 2012, a digital restoration of Samson and Delilah was completed. The original three-strip Technicolor camera negatives were scanned at 4K on a Northlight scanner and then registered, cleaned, and color corrected in 4K by Technicolor Los Angeles. Paramount Home Media Distribution released the film on DVD (with English, French, and Spanish audio and subtitles) on March 12, 2013. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc (with the original theatrical trailer) on March 11, 2014.