For the scene in which Samson kills the lion, Victor Mature refused to wrestle a tame movie lion. Told by Producer and Director Cecil B. DeMille that the lion had no teeth, Mature replied, "I don't want to be gummed to death, either." The scene shows a stuntman wrestling the tame lion, intercut with close-ups of Mature wrestling a lion skin.
This movie was in post-production when Boulevard du Crépuscule (1950) was being shot at Paramount Pictures. In a scene where Gloria Swanson's character Norma Desmond visits a Paramount soundstage to see Producer and Director Cecil B. DeMille, the set of Delilah's tent in the Valley of Sorek was reassembled to show the director working. Henry Wilcoxon, Julia Faye, and others in costumes were seen shaking hands with Norma Desmond.
With a $28 million gross domestically, this was Paramount Pictures' biggest hit since Les dix commandements (1923).
According to his 1959 autobiography "Groucho and Me", Groucho Marx was invited to a special screening of this movie and a Paramount Pictures executive asked him if he liked it. Groucho replied, "Well, there's just one glaring fault. No picture can hold my interest where the leading man's bust is larger than the leading lady's!"
According to Scott Eyman's biography of Cecil B. DeMille, the real reason that Burt Lancaster did not get the role of Samson was due to his politics, Lancaster being a liberal while DeMille was a conservative, as was Victor Mature, who ultimately got the role.