DeMille's 1949 Samson and Delilah, with Hedy Lamarr, Vitor Mature and George Sanders
Costumes by Miss Edith Head. I'm about to watch this (for the first time!) in glorious restored Blu-Ray Technicolor. Filmed on location in Algeria, Morocco, and Hollywood USA. Funny, it's 1:37, not widescreen. The Overture music (Victor Young) is playing now, very nice. I don't remember this story from Sunday School, and I hope it's a juicy as this Overture.
Discuss.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 36 | April 25, 2018 4:43 AM
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OMG look Angela Lansbury! She's looked basically the same for what, 100 years!?
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 1 | March 3, 2018 7:20 PM
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Cheesy good fun. The final scenes are an excellent example of an effective non-CGI disaster sequence. George Sanders is his usual terrific, decadent self. Enjoy, OP! (Sorry, I realize as R1 this should be snarky, but I’m fond of this film).
by Anonymous | reply 2 | March 3, 2018 7:22 PM
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I'm enjoying the cartoonish but complicated plot. Hedy Lamarr looks every one of her 35 (+?) years. How old is Delilah in the Hebrew Bible?
Look at this German poster. Do you think its authentic? Hedy is a stripper! She's not this risqué in the movie...
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 3 | March 3, 2018 8:15 PM
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Victor Mature, the original Sylvester Stallone.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | March 3, 2018 9:06 PM
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Sylvester should be so lucky, r5......
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 6 | March 3, 2018 9:16 PM
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Silly film, chiefly notable for this absolutely amazing gown!
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 7 | March 3, 2018 11:45 PM
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The second most popular movie of the 1940’s behind only Gone With the Wind. DeMille was just getting warmed up for The Ten Commandments by doing this film. DeMille seems to have had the same group of cheesy writers for the dialogue for both films.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | April 2, 2018 12:06 PM
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Groucho Marx was asked about this film and he said, "I never watch a movie where the leading man's tits are larger than the leading ladies."
by Anonymous | reply 9 | April 2, 2018 4:59 PM
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Apparently DeMille hated Victor Mature, who was hesitant about doing scenes with the attacking lion. DeMille picked up his megaphone and announced to everyone that Mature was a "coward".
by Anonymous | reply 10 | April 2, 2018 5:02 PM
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I'm sorry, but where did you find the information that this movie was made in Morocco and Algeria?! 95% of this film was filmed indoors in L.A. and that handful of outdoor scenes sure as hell wasn't filmed in North Africa.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | April 2, 2018 5:08 PM
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Probably Hedy's best film. This role fit her.
by Anonymous | reply 13 | April 2, 2018 5:55 PM
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R13 at least she finally was filmed in color although she was well past her peak beauty. Hedy’s beauty was positively sublime in films like Ziegfeld Girl. I don’t think there has ever been a more physically beautiful movie star.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 14 | April 2, 2018 7:46 PM
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R12 thanks for the tip on Shirley Verrett, she is magnificent.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | April 4, 2018 1:35 AM
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It's on right now, on the local station that keeps playing camp classics! Fabulous mess, and Hedy Lamarr may have been the worst actress ever to become a major film star! Which totally works for this ridiculous spectacle, with a good actress as Delilah it would just been dull, but with Hedy wearing one of the most fabulous wardrobes in the history of films and giving one of the worst performances EVER, it's great fun!
I love every silly minute of it. Do you realize that Hedy plays her role with a German accent, Angela Lansbury who plays her sister uses an English accent, and Victor Mature has an American one?
by Anonymous | reply 16 | April 15, 2018 7:02 PM
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Victor Mature once said the hardest part about acting was sucking in his stomach all the time.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | April 15, 2018 7:10 PM
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Was Hedy really a Jew? She must be from that Natalie Portman tribe.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | April 15, 2018 7:38 PM
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R18 Yup Hedy was 100% Jewish although she maintained the entire time she was in America that she was not. Her children did not find out that they were 1/2 Jewish until after her death, there father was English but left shortly after their births.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | April 22, 2018 12:44 AM
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"Victor Mature once said the hardest part about acting was sucking in his stomach all the time."
I remember he said something like "I'm no actor - and I have 60 films to prove it"
by Anonymous | reply 20 | April 22, 2018 12:47 AM
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R18 You never know on heritage but Hedy’s father was from Ukraine and her mother was from Hungary but Hedy’s eye color, green, indicates something else was going on with her genes than being Hebrew. It’s not clear if Jews from Ukraine were actually Jewish as they may have maintained they were because they were stuck between Muslims and Christians and may have tried to forge a middle ground to survive independently around 900 A,D,
by Anonymous | reply 22 | April 22, 2018 1:00 AM
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Samson and Delilah was the highest grossing film of 1949. It raked in big bucks.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 23 | April 22, 2018 1:01 AM
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"Sampson's over acting!" "Sampson's over acting!" Lol! Animaniacs (a cartoon from the 90s) did a bit with Yakko, Wakko and Dot where they were in ancient times. When Sampson (Mature) was speaking a man would dance through the scene and shout those lines lol! I was 15 years old at the time and just died laughing as I have seen the movie when I was about 10/12 years old and didn't understand what bad acting was. That episode made me understand.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | April 22, 2018 1:02 AM
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OP, widescreen did not start until 1953/1954. This film was released 1949.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | April 22, 2018 1:06 AM
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THat's [bold]HEDLEY[/bold], OP.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | April 22, 2018 1:07 AM
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I love Victor Mature but man, was he a little "mature" by the time he started doing these beefcake roles. Or at least he looked it. I cannot get past his age in this and The Robe.
R20, yeah, he had a tremendous amount of humor about himself. The thing, though, is that he was a bit too hard on himself. He acted circles around Richard Burton (who just ranted "Were you out there?" and scowled for two hours). If The Robe had been a better film (instead of campy), he would've deserved an Oscar nomination for his performance.
Anyway, the funnest thing about Samson Delilah is that it has that dialogue that's supposed to sound biblical and "poetic" but is corny, like "The trouble you brew today, you'll drink tomorrow" and "The most desirable grapes are always out of reach."
by Anonymous | reply 28 | April 22, 2018 1:11 AM
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Dear God, r24 I loved Animaniacs! It was so AWESOME! I wonder if it's on Hulu or Netflix.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | April 22, 2018 1:16 AM
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R28 I have no idea where they come up with the Biblical dialogue in this movie but DeMille must have had him on retainer for The Ten Commandments too.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | April 22, 2018 1:34 AM
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Okay, I saw a film on Hedy Lamarr tonight, at the local Jewish Film Festival. Yes, Hedy was Jewish, and bolted from Austria just before the shit got real. She had to earn a living and make a new life for herself in the US, so when the MGM publicists said that from now on she'd been brought up Catholic, she went along with it. MGM may have been run by the Jewish L.B. Mayer, but he didn't want his stars coming out as Jews. She didn't bring her children up in the religion and never told them about the family background, and it's not clear why. Traumatic exposure to anti-Semitism at a young age? Convenience? Just didn't believe?
And BTW, she really did invent the frequency-hopping radio waves that's the basis of wifi, GPS, and everything else that makes your cell phone work. She was always inventing little things, it was her hobby, but after the Navy laughed at her idea for using alternating-frequency torpedoes to take out U-Boats, she gave up on inventing big things. Very intelligent woman, capable of so much more than being photogenic.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | April 22, 2018 7:15 AM
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BTW R32 Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr story is out on dvd on April 24th. You can buy it through Amazon, Best Buy or rent it from Netflix.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | April 23, 2018 6:27 PM
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^ Thanks for the heads up, I put it on my netflix queue
by Anonymous | reply 34 | April 24, 2018 12:39 AM
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Very sexy painting of Samson after Delilah cut off his hair.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 36 | April 25, 2018 4:43 AM
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