Customer Reviews

Samson & Delilah [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This film includes a lot of embelishment as well as fictional characters to fill out the story of Samson, taken from Judges Ch. 13 through 16, but the essence of the story is intact. A man who loved the God of his fathers, but also the women of his enemies, the Philistines, and finds his real strength only after he has lost everything.
Samson is portrayed as man who never cries, not even as a baby at his bris (circumcision), or his father's death, but the feelings of lust and revenge weave continually through his story, and there are many brutal scenes, making this film not recommended for children.

As Samson's mother Mara, Diana Rigg is superb; she is a "type," like Sarah/Isaac, Rachel/Jacob, Hannah/Samuel, and Elisabeth/John the Baptist, all barren women who miraculously give birth to a son that becomes a leader/savior of his people.
Eric Thal is effective as Samson, very big and brawny, and he looks great on horseback. He also carries off the end parts too, which could easily have become cartoonish.
Michael Gambon is terrific as the wily old King Hamun of the Philistines, and in the most bizarre casting, Dennis Hopper as a laid back general. Elizabeth Hurley's Delilah is a cool, calculating vixen, and beautiful enough to make the most of Samson's weakness. Max Von Sydow does the narration throughout the film.

The Philistine interiors are very imaginitive, with their grotesque gods and massive columns, and the devastation of them well filmed. The fight with the lion is cleverly done also, with lots of grunts and roars from man and beast.
Filmed on location in Quarzazate, Morocco, it has a marvelous score by Marco Frisina, the excellent cinematography of Raffaele Mertes, and well paced direction by Nicolas Roeg.
"David," "Solomon," "Jeremiah," and "Abraham", are my favorites of these above average made for TV Bible stories, and this film, though not one of the best, is highly entertaining with some good acting. Total running time: 182 minutes.

This Italian production is not your usual Bible-epic. With striking set design, beautiful art direction and oftentimes alarming attention to period detail, this is pretty realistic stuff. And pretty brutal. A lot of this can be attributed to British art-house director Nicolas Roeg, who has made "Samson and Delilah" perhaps his most ambitious film to date. At 180 minutes there is nary a dull moment. Roeg afficianados will appreciate the customary Roeg flourishes: shocking edits, liberal use of the zoom lens, intentional placement of humor and a general atmosphere of mysticism and otherworldliness. The performances are all around solid. Dennis Hopper turns in a clever and decidedly Hopper-esque performance as a reluctant Philistine general. Eric Thall, as Samson, comes across as vulnerable and humane yet entirely believable when coerced to flights of rage. His long hair doesn't look fake, chalking up another high mark for this film's realism. And Elizabeth Hurley as Delilah? Well, what more needs to be said? She really delivers with her greedy seduction of Samson and subsequent guilt. Not to mention, that in her Delilah garb, she is absolutely gorgeous. All in all a surprising and entertaining movie for Nicolas Roeg and all involved. Be sure to keep rolling for the credits as not to miss the Ennio Morricone-scored end titles. A short and haunting piece that is very appropriate.

More biblical epic than Harlequin romance, 'Samson and Delilah' has a good look and feel. With the exception of two steamy scenes, it sticks to the good book with some decent interpretations added to the dialogue. Overlong at three hours, the camera shots and scene changes, nevertheless, keep it visually appealing. Some of the battle scenes are admirable indeed. Eric Thall and Elizabeth Hurley star in the leading roles, and while they're not Emmy or Oscar contenders, Thall's performance gathers more substance near the end of the story. Dennis Hopper's portrayal of General Tariq isn't a career best, but he ups the quality of the acting, and Michael Gambon gives proper stature to King Hanon. Solid, but not substantial.

I pulled out my Bible while watching Samson & Delilah. There were several inconsistencies and the order of some events were completely wrong. Samson seemed very weak. He was straining to lift things that he shouldn't have had a problem with and even though they didn't show him lifting the city gates, it would seem ironic that he could do that by himself, but strain to lift up an average sized man.

I found this film a bit dissappointing, especially after watching Joseph. I began to collect the entire Bible Collection set and Samson & Delilah was my second.

If you are looking for a video to rely on completely to display Bible truth, this is probably not the video for you.

Am I the only one that thinks Samson's life would have been at least slightly dramatic? This movie slacks off on everything so much that the scene where he supposedly kills a thousand guys I think he probably kills five. And he struggls against the woosy prince of Philistia. The movie doesn't even show him taking the gate of gaza; but it sure does show the prostitutes in his life. I said the movie slacks off on everything maybe I shouldn't have said that. It doesn't seem to slack off much on his sex. For crying out loud this is supposed to be Christian. Oh and also it definitely isn't biblical the story is so messed up the only real similarity between it and the Bible is the names. Oh and I'm sorry, but this move doesn't need the part on Samson's circumcision either.

SAMSON AND DELILAH is 3 hours long! It has three great lead actors and a famous director, but it is greatly weakened by too much fictionalized filling-in around what the Bible says about the story.

The first two hours are pretty slow, with half of it being embellishments to try to make the Scriptural details seem logical and rational to modern viewers. This is a good idea, but they leave out half of the Bible details, while trying to make plausible the half of Scripture that they do cover. They create many non-Biblical characters who help develop the history of the Israel/Philistine conflict, but I don't think it's worth the screen time that they use up, and it definitely isn't worth leaving out Bible details to make room for the fictional characters and back story.

They hired Dennis Hopper for the film, but they had to create a fictional character for him to play, the Philistine General Tariq, and then they spend too much time developing Hopper's character and the fictional details that MIGHT have been going on with the bad guys. In the meantime, they don't cover all of the details in the short story from the actual Bible. They do a good job with the non-Biblical story, but it makes the first 2 hours of the movie kind of drag along.

The last hour of the movie almost redeems the entire movie, as this is where a lot of the overly extensive character development finally cashes in. Unfortunately, though the last hour is emotional and logically put together, it is not really Scripturally accurate. We end up seeing what the filmmakers wrote, not necessarily what God wrote in the Bible.

Early in the film, one blunder was not covering all of the angel telling Samson's parents about their unlikely son to be born to them. They show the wife being told, but then cut out the husband, Manoah, praying for the angel to return for more information, and them eating together when the angel disappears into the smoke. This would have been a fairly inexpensive scene, and it would have helped out the percentage of actual Bible content, but it did not make it into the movie. I guess their special effects budget may have been too low for the disappearance into the smoke, but it would have been easy to do all the rest of that Bible passage. They already had all of the actors on the set for it, but did not get it into the movie.

They took many verses from the Samson Bible story, but shifted the chronology and smaller details around. It is not too badly done, but would have been so much stronger if they had stuck to Biblical accuracy.

They show Samson fighting the lion, but doing it to save Delilah. Samson fights Philistines with a jawbone, but only a few dozen, not 1,000 as the Bible says he did. They show Samson setting the fields afire, but not with foxes tied together at the tails. They allude to Samson carrying the city gate away, but don't show it onscreen.

They named the movie SAMSON AND DELILAH, but they actually end up with little onscreen time showing the two together, which surprised me.

SAMSON AND DELILAH might be too mature for children, as it shows Samson hooking up with a harlot, and in bed with Delilah. There is no nudity, but their bodies are humping and bumping together, and small kids might ask what the characters are doing. If a child is too young for the birds and the bees, then you should definitely skip this movie.

If you are really into Bible movies, then you may enjoy this one. But I don't recommend using it to try to witness to people who aren't already confirmed believers. It is too slow for anybody with only a casual interest in the subject matter.

This is part of a line of made-for-TV Bible movies from the 1990's, from LUBE Productions, an Italian company making films for English speaking audiences. SAMSON AND DELILAH is one of the weaker films in the series, though it is still not too bad, if you are really curious to see it. The best ones in the series are ESTHER, SOLOMON and JEREMIAH. Those three have been out for years on DVD, and are a better bargain if purchased together in THE BIBLE SERIES BOX SET. It has only been in 2005 that the rest of the series became available on DVD, though they have been available on VHS all along. The production values are very good in all the films, though they are sometimes weak in the area of supernatural events onscreen, probably due to the expense of special effects.

I would recommend the DVDs of JEREMIAH, ESTHER, SOLOMON, JACOB or JOSEPH ahead of SAMSON AND DELILAH, if Bible accuracy is what you are looking for. But fans of Dennis Hopper and Elizabeth Hurley will enjoy SAMSON AND DELILAH because these two actors do a good job and get a decent amount of screen time.

TNT produced a wonderful series of Old Testament dramas. All are good but some are better than others. This one falls somewhere in the middle.

Samson is a child gifted with superhuman strength. He is an Israelite and his people are under the thumb of the Philistines. He is God's chosen instrument for deliverance.

He would seem a strange choice. He is not exactly a pious individual. He is fairly faithful to his vows but sees nothing wrong with having a good time. This is especially true when having a good time involves a beautiful girl of the Philistines. Over time, he lets the treacherous beauty in on his secret and the result is terrible. He is deprived of that which makes him great to begin with and winds ups as a blinded slave.

The redeeming quality of the story is God's ability to take an imperfect individual and use him for great purposes. Nobody is beyond the pale. That is the central message and it is well done.

On the minus side, there are some non scriptural elements. This is to be expected for a long production of a fairly short biblical story. In my mind, these do not detract from the centrality of the message. Some of the acting is a bit underwhelming but it is by no means bad. All in all, this is a good show.

Folks, if you want typical Hollywood sensuality, then buy this. If you want Biblical message without sexuality, DON'T BUY THIS. The level of the "consummation moments" where Samson is showed having sex with Delilah is WAY TOO detailed and down right animalistic. Delilah is shown to picture (AND ENJOY) a great lion attacking her, in her mind, while Samson is (with music and sound to amplify the moment) over-top of her and reaching a climatic moment during their sexual intercourse. The sexuality is overbearing for the screen, and takes the Biblical and spiritual moments completely away from the film.

For thousands of years the Biblical account of Samson has been around, and the Holy Scriptures themselves tell us about Samson's sinful sexual relationship with Delilah, and we ALL GOT THE POINT from the Bible. We didn't need God to have inspired recordings of the detailed sexual moments in order for us to understand the tensions (or the lessons!) involved. Hollywood is tattooed all over this one, and we recommend this movie go to the garbage can. We cut our DVD in two and tossed it! Oy!

HOWEVER, you can safely buy an older film, with more Biblical accuracy (way more "honorable" film) and enjoyment, that's called "Samson and Delilah" presented by Cecil B. DeMille, Paramount Pictures, 128 minutes, made in 1949. Technicolor was done well! Oddly, the DVD came from "Zhi Sen Studio Inc" in Taiwan...but you won't regret it! Buy it instead of this "Bible Collection" one.

Elizabeth Hurley made a realistic Delilah. Surely, the real Delilah was not chased by Samson because she was a paragon of chastity or a plain Jane. Dennis Hopper plays a wise and seasoned Phillistine general, pure invention for the movie. Surely, the Philistines were not all bad, unlikeable people, so that makes sense. Having said that, the movie is way too long...3 whole hours. I am sure the point could have been made in 2 hours max. The sex scenes between Samson and Delilah are long and suggestive, surely causing discomfort with parents trying to watch with their young children. They should know to watch first before showing the kids in any movie done after the 1980s and surely any movie starring Elizabeth Hurley amps up the sex a little bit. Is she doing this kind of stuff anymore, this Joan Collins successor, because she herself is getting up there in years?

One more question I have. Was there a Gaza in the old testament? The Philistine city is called Gaza in the movie. Wikipedia indicates that indeed, there was a Philistine Gaza. Who are the modern day descendants of said Philistines. Surely, they are one of the regions many monotheistic groups.

I was gravely disappointed with Samson & Delilah. I found the story lagging (one tape would have sufficed) with many biblical inaccuracies including odd characters of no biblical origin. Additionally, I thought Dennis Hopper was horribly miscast. His dry way of speaking seemed too distracting.

Although Eric Thal protrays a pensive Samson, the war between Samson's lust and his passion for God was not at all believable. His period of serving as a judge seemed more like a trist. Admittedly, I enjoyed Elizabeth Hurley as Delilah (I think this is some of her best work anywhere). In my opinion, you'd do best to pass on this video.