Molly-31

It's fashionable to look at characters in old movies and decide who was supposed to be gay. However, Waldo may have had an even worse secret. That character was based closely on writer and critic Alexander Woolcott, who was not gay (although I'm sure plenty of people in his own time thought he was). His chronic bitterness and gall, vented regularly in his columns, was due to impotence, a sequellae of mumps in his late twenties. Harpo Marx, who probably knew him better than anyone, talks about this in his book. Woolcott gathered around him a large number of extremely attractive women, but wouldn't marry because it wouldn't be fair to the girl. Think about Waldo in this light. Like Woollcott, he's putting his energy into creative pursuits, including his Pygmalionish grooming of Laura. This could explain a lot more of what happened.

I remember this show very well. I never missed it. I love Paul Ford. The episode I remember best was a Halloween special in which someone tried to scare them by dressing up like Dracula and swooping in to declare "I stopped by to borrow a cup of blood!" At the very end, the little boy from next door (played by Clint Howard, who went on to "Gentle Ben" and played a small (adult) alien in Star Trek's "The Corbomite Maneuver") showed up in his Dracula costume for Halloween and said "My mother sent me over to borrow a cup of -- SUGAR." I was very taken with Balboa and Newport Beach as they were shown on the program and I always wanted to go there. Well, today I did! I wouldn't mind living there myself except it's probably very expensive and I'd end up combing the beach for a living too.

Briefly, here's my rationale for Angela and Hedy playing sisters. Semidar and Delilah had different mothers. Their father may have had 2 wives (ok at that time) or his first wife could have died and then he remarried. By the way, Delilah isn't throwing small rocks at Samson, just plum pits. (And, apropos of nothing, in college I used to have an outfit exactly like the one she's wearing in that scene.)

Someone asked how they could weave such exquisite fabric back then; it was an art as well as a skill, and you see Wilcoxon showing off bolts of cloth including silk or cotton gauze at the beginning as part of his proposed bride price for Semidar. Delilah herself was a weaver according to the Bible (you see her loom in one scene after Samson breaks it) so you can imagine her making some of her own outfits.

With a great cast (even the bit players were good!) and exquisite cinematography, this is one of DeMille's best and should be out on DVD. Write to Paramount, and keep writing, after all the squeaky wheel gets the grease!