Samson and Delilah

Samson came after Moses and he was commanded by God to deliver his people from slavery. As I watched this film I saw when Samson was speaking to Sidka and Delilah at different times and in all those times.He never once mentioned any of God's Ten Commandments most especially God's 1st and 2nd Commandments.At Samson's wedding he was told by Sidka he was going to join the garrison and even though he refused to serve them he still didn't mention God the way he should have.If I myself was Samson and in his position,I would've reflected on several things.I would have told Sidka there is only one God-The one who gave Moses The Ten Commandments,the one who parted the red sea,the one drowned over 600 of the Pharaohs chariots in the water after the Hebrews made it safely while the red sea was parted.I would have taken great joy in telling Sidka and Delilah there is only one God and he made it clear in his 1st Commandment.More so when God punished the Hebrews for worshiping a golden calf calling it a god of gold.I would have stood in front of everyone and told all of them what proof do you people need here about God.If God ever gave me the kind of strength that he gave Samson along with a sacred vow to God never to reveal it,I would have never revealed it to Delilah or anyone for that matter.Because he gave into Delilah he lost his strength as well as his eye sight and all the humility with it,until God forgave him and restored his strength.I am not surprised at this biblical film or any others,because when it comes to God's Ten Commandments they are never mentioned for what they actually stand for.

A couple of Australians, Anthony Hamilton and Belinda Bauer, play the title roles in this television version of Samson And Delilah. But this film is mostly known for hauling Victor Mature out of retirement to play the small role of Samson's father. During the film Mature is kept very clothed with flowing robes of the desert and I suspect that 71 Mature did not have quite the physique that he had when he was Samson back in the day with Cecil B. DeMille.

In fact even with the way DeMille's spectacles are thought of today by more sophisticated audiences this Samson And Delilah comes off as a second company road show product. Whatever else DeMille did, he put style and sex into his film even with the Victorian era dialog that also went into them. Both the slaying of the Philistines with the ass's jawbone and the climatic pulling down of Dagon's temple were done so much better by Cecil. And no other film ever had the gaudy color cinematography than the DeMille Samson And Delilah.

I also suppose this film really does belong on the big screen because of its subject matter. That's where I saw the DeMille version when Paramount re-released it when I was a lad.

Belinda Bauer is a beautiful Delilah, but there was only one Hedy Lamarr.

Veterans of some biblical films Max Von Sydow and Jose Ferrer contribute what they can, but it isn't enough.

However after finally getting to see this it was nice to see Victor Mature in both his farewell performance and in the film in which he made the legendary quote that the reason he did the film was that "for the money they were paying me, I'd have put on a dress and played Samson's mother". Fortunately for Vic the producers got another big screen veteran Maria Schell to be Samson's mother.

As for Mature he walks through the scenes like a man in a hurry to get back to his retirement and a ranch he owned in those years. The paycheck must have cleared. Mature as he grew older took himself less and less seriously, an interesting phenomenon in a town loaded with king size egos.

This Samson And Delilah is all right, but you'll never see anything like what Cecil B. DeMille did with that story.

The movie begins somewhat like the Cecile B DeMile film of 1949 with the big muscular Samson being carried down to the river by soldiers the way that Victor Mature appeared at his mother's home and was first seen from the impressive back of his garments. The 1984 version probably takes liberties with the Bible story though, such as Israeli soldiers being conscripted by the Philistines to patrol their own territory.

Many will criticize the Antony Hamilton version for not having lavish props like the 1949 film but to be fair the 1984 film was MADE FOR TV -- our victor mature film was made for audiences who didn't yet know about television. For example, slaying 1000 soldiers was much more spectacular in the Victor Mature version than in the Hamilton version.

Antony Hamilton is decidedly more muscular and chiseled than the beefy Victor Mature who was not living in our age of nutrition and weightlifting but Hamilton probably achieved his muscularity from sheer exercise more than from the weights -- he was a dancer with the Australian Ballet before becoming a model and then an actor.(Doubtless he was an actor on stage in his ballet roles -- he had to show all his feeling and thoughts on his face as he danced his various roles just as Lou Degni used the acting skills he had learned in his films when he studied opera.

We don't know exactly how Samson fell asleep with Delilah after he had revealed the secret of his great strength and in this film Delilah sensuously pours her wine on her breasts and Samson licks off the drug-laden wine from there and falls asleep, only to find his strength gone and his hair cut when he awakes.

This was perhaps Antony Hamilton's second film role only and he went on to do Mission Imppossible and many other television adventure series. He was closeted while doing Samson and Delilah in the 1980's and even stayed at fellow Australian Belinda Bauers beach house for the filming. eventually he became part of the gay scene who gathered on Coney Island , New York on the weekends and finally succumbed to HIV Aids. I was told that he had little money when he died -- so uncaring the film community seemed to be for him unlike Elizabeth Taylor with Rock Hudson -- so it makes sense that Hamilton went home to Australia to die of Aids-related pneumonia. A very sad end to a breathtakingly exciting career for a perfectly chiseled man.

This was an interesting film, I was expecting something that would be fairly Biblical in its storytelling, but although it was based on the Bible, some of the elements were out of order, missing, added to or changed too much for it to be an accurate representation of what the Bible tells us in the book of Judges about the life of Samson.

This film starts off when Samson is about to marry a Philistine woman (not Delilah, but his first wife) and after that some bits are missed out and Delilah comes into the scene early on before Samson marries his first wife. Yet the Bible makes no mention of her until long after she is dead.

I thought the acting was good, especially from the famous actor Max von Sydow, and Belinda Bauer was good as Delilah. And let's not forget that great actor Jose Ferrer who plays the high priest of Dagon.

This is an entertaining film, but I would have liked to see it follow the Bible more closely. If you want to see an account of Samson that follows the Bible, this is not it. For example, the Bible says that Samson did not have his hair cut or his beard shaved, in accordance with the vow he took, yet in the first scene we see Samson as a young man and clean shaven. His hair is long at the back, but on top and at the sides it looks normal, not long at all. The vow that he took where he was forbidden to cut his hair or shave, or drink alcohol, is very important to the story of Samson, and especially to how he eventually loses his strength when his hair and beard are shaved off. Yet in this film he drank wine and generally did not do the things the Bible tells. And in this film Delilah cuts off a small bit of his pony tail and he loses his strength, the Bible tells us that he was shaved by a professional barber hired by Delilah. And they missed out all the times when he tricked Delilah and did not tell her the true way to lose his strength, and the Philistines attacked him but he was still strong. So the filmmakers could have made this better and been more true to the true story of Samson, but instead I think they wanted a more romantic and idealistic story so they changed it. And there was too much of Delilah in the film overall, and too much of her showing in her revealing clothing and when she was naked.

5 out of 10, which is mostly for the good acting and generally well made film, but would be higher if they had followed the Bible more.

I appreciated the presence of Maria Schell and Victor Mature in the roles of parents of Samson.

I was grateful to Anthony Hamilton for the effort to propose a decent Samson. And Belinda Bauer is the reasonable Delilah. No doubts, different by what you know , from early ages , about title heroes but , not ignoring be only a TV movie, being familiar with 1980 s productions, not ignoring the fashion of Biblical adaptations, to be too critic about this version is unfair. Including for honest job of Jose Ferrer and Max van Sidow, for atmosphere and for physical obvious virtues of Mr. Hamilton.

So, a kind of easy adapation, decent at whole, no doubts, charming in its way.