Samson and Delilah

CinemaSerf

Thirty five years after he took the top billing, Victor Mature briefly returns as his own dad (Manoah) in this rehash of the biblical story of the fabulously strong man (Antony Hamilton) who has to help get his tribe safely from Egypt and then who becomes emotionally ensnared by the manipulatively glamorous Delilah (Belinda Bauer). She is a Philistine who is intent on helping her governor Sidka (an extremely hammy Max von Sydow) and the malevolent high priest Dagon (Jose Ferrer) to either harness or destroy his lion-killing might. What now ensues takes quite a bit of cinematic licence with the story from the book of Judges but still manages to present a decently crafted iteration with some reasonable attention to the look and the detail of the feature. It’s a bit wordy and despite the names on the poster it doesn’t have any of the charisma from the de Mille version from 1949 - indeed it is quite difficult to figure out who this was remade for at all. The last ten minutes, or so, enliven it a little but for me it really only served to remind me of just what Hollywood could do at it’s Technicolor best.