Delilah (Samson And Delilah 1949)

Delilah (Hedy Lamarr) is a Biblical villainess in Cecil B. DeMille's 1949 film Samson and Delilah.

Delilah

Hedy Lamarr is perfectly cast to play the evil biblical seductress and vamp in the 1949 Cecil B. DeMille’s version of the classic story.

Samson, according to the legend, was incredibly strong and invulnerable to most weapons, although he does bleed after fighting a lion. When he was born it was prophesied that as long as he never cut his hair he would always be strong and invulnerable.

Delilah (Hedy Lamarr) is the younger sister of Semadar (a very young Angela Lansbury) who is engaged to Samson a Hebrew strong man.

Delilah is also attracted to Samson. She gets to know Samson and they go riding with in a chariot and they are attacked by a lion which the strong man kills with his bear hands. The lion cuts Samson only slightly with its claws.

At the wedding the feast for Samson and Delilah the festival is attacked by 30 Philistines who arrive to collect a debt from Samson.

Samson has to go and fetch an expensive cloak to pay the debt. When he returns he finds that that Semadar’s father has married his bride to be off to one of the Philistines to pay Samson’s debt.

Samson gets in a fight with the Philistines. He is unarmed and the Philistines have spears. Samson uses his incredibly strength to throw huge slabs of rock that kill several of the attackers. However, one of the Philistines takes careful aim and lobs a spear at the voluptuous Semadar killing her instantly. Samson kills Semadar’s murderer.

Samson becomes a hunted man, and in his fury he begins fighting the Philistines. In an attempt to get the local people (the Danites) to turn over Samson to the authorities the Saran of Gaza (George Sanders) imposes heavy taxes on the Danites.

Semadar

The Saran's plan works, and frustrated Danites hand over Samson to the Philistines, much to the joy of Delilah, Semadar's younger sister Delilah who blamed the death of her father and sister on Samson.

Samson allows himself to be taken away in chains by Prince Ahtur (Henry Wilcoxon), the military governor of the land of Dan, and a regiment of Philistine troops.

As the Strong man is led away back to Gaza, Ahtur makes the mistake of taunting Samson. Samson rips apart his chains and ropes and begins to fight and kill the Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.

News of Samson’s victory over Ahtur and his soldiers travels quickly. The Saran needs to find a way to stop Samson and knows that there is a some sort of secret to the strong man’s great power.

Delilah who appears to be a concubine of Saran suggests that she might try and seducing Samson to find out the secret of his immense strength. Delilah has been infatuated with Samson ever since her late sister began seeing him but now hates him. She knows that by seducing the strong man she’ll have the pleasure of being groped and laid by the big muscle man and then destroying him completely.

After Delilah and Samson become lovers she attempts to find out the secrets of his strength but he at first refuses to tell her. Samson, who is now totally in love with Delilah tells her his secret.

Samson gets a hair cut

Later while Samson sleeps she cuts his hair. When he awakens he is surrounded by enemy soldiers with spears and is now too weak to fight.

Saran showers Delilah’s feet in silver and Samson is chained up and blinded with a red hot sword.

Delilah who was in love with Samson, although she suppressed the emotion because she used to believe that he was responsible for the death of her father and sister now feels sorry for what she did. She also realizes that Saran is the true murder.

Samson is led into the arena where he is forced to blindly fight as the people in the stadium laugh at him.

Delilah goes into the area and pretends to whip Samson with a whip which she uses to guide him to the temple’s main support pillars. He places his hands on the pillars and prays that god will give him his strength back just for a moment. He then pushes the pillars which causes the temple to collapse and kill all the evil people.

Delilah is also crushed in the collapse of the temple.