Samson (Victor Mature) is young, carefree, and blessed by God with incredible strength. He is also a leader of an oppressed people but is more interested in wooing one of the ruling Philistines. He has his eye on Semadar (Angela Lansbury) but she is promised to the Lord Governor Ahtur (Henry Wilcoxon). Semadar's younger, and smarter, sister Delilah (Hedy Lamarr) wants Samson for herself but he will not be dissuaded. She sets herself to destroying Samson, moving up to the right hand of the Saran of Gaza (George Sanders) to do so.
The actual Bible verses are pretty short and straight to the point. There isn't a lot about Delilah's motivations so novelist Victor Jabotinsky, and by extension, screenwriters Jesse Lasky, Jr. and Fredric Frank did a lot of ad libbing. The result is a completely toxic relationship with two people who love but can't trust each other. It makes Delilah much more of a complex character (and you have to wonder how much Lamarr had to do with that behind the scenes) and imminently more watchable than the sermonizing parable it could have been. DeMille knows epics and his biblical epics are especially biblical. This has camp classic written all over it.
It's currently streaming for free with ads on Crackle. It has longer ad breaks more often than Tubi, so it's not my favorite free site but it does have stuff other streamers lack. You do what you can out here in the streaming wilds.
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