![]() Sure, it offers plenty of opportunity for sex and violence, but its ambivalent hero, who is both a mighty warrior for God and a foolish hedonist, prevents a good-versus-evil structure as clear-cut as that of the Exodus narrative. The Old Testament tale of Samson and Delilah also seems less amenable to the Hollywood treatment, and DeMille reportedly struggled with the story for years. Paganism leads to superstition and tyranny, the invisible God to individual freedom. ![]() Samson and Delilah also features a sonorous prologue narrated by DeMille, which similarly Americanizes the biblical story, framing it as a tale of man’s quest for liberty. For example, a Philistine crushes an old Danite man underfoot, calling him a “mud turtle” an Egyptian slave master repeats the memorable insult in The Ten Commandments. Seen today, Samson and Delilah almost looks like a prototype for DeMille’s Moses picture, not only testing out giant Technicolor sets and disaster showpieces, but also including bits of dialogue and themes that would be repeated in the later film. DeMille’s biggest box office hits, and even though the film kick-started the second golden age of biblical epics (the first occurring during the latter portion of the silent era), the picture has been largely overshadowed by DeMille’s final masterpiece, The Ten Commandments (1956). Even though Samson and Delilah (1949) was one of Cecil B.
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