Samson and Delilah (1996) (TV)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Nicolas Roeg

Writer:

Allan Scott (writer)

Release Date:

8 December 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama

Plot:

Mara and her husband Manoa are both upstanding and religious Israelites living under the harsh and unjust rule of the Philistines...

Plot Keywords:

Hair | Temple | Betrayal | Biblical | Building Collapse

Cast

Eric Thal	...	Samson
Elizabeth Hurley	...	Dalila
Michael Gambon	...	Re Hamun
Dennis Hopper	...	Generale Tariq
Diana Rigg	...	Mara
Daniel Massey	...	Ira
Paul Freeman	...	Manoach
Ben Becker	...	Principe Sidqa
Jale Arikan	...	Noemi
Deborah Caprioglio	...	Rani
Alessandro Gassman	...	Amrok
Pinkas Braun	...	Harach
Sebastian Knapp	...	Yoram
Karl Tessler	...	Jehiel
Luke Mullaney	...	Amram

Also Known As:

Die Bibel: Samson und Delila (Germany)
Sansone e Dalila

Runtime:

Germany:172 min (2 parts)

Country:

Germany | Italy | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Morocco

Company:

Beta Film

Quotes:

Generale Tariq: I hate an incompetent enemy. They make me less. They turn a general into a butcher.

Movie Connections:

Version of Samson (1914)

SAMSON AND DELILAH (TV) (Nicolas Roeg, 1996) **

This is the third version of the Biblical tale that I've watched - or fourth, if you include the peplum SAMSON (1961); the best of the lot, clearly, remains Cecil B. De Mille's 1949 spectacular.

Since this is part of a series of made-for-TV films highlighting famous stories from the Bible, one is surprised to find a celebrated and talented director such as Nicolas Roeg involved - though they all managed to attract a vast array of international and upcoming stars. That said, Roeg's career has been steadily on a downhill slide ever since the mid-80s - surely one of the saddest declines in recent memory! This film was actually written by the director's frequent collaborator Allan Scott (including the masterpiece DON'T LOOK NOW [1973]), but the magic is seldom in evidence on this particular occasion - and the end result is as bland as its TV origins suggest...

Even so, it's not entirely worthless if clearly overly-padded at a length of nearly 3 hours: while the look of the film is curiously drab, the star cast offers compensations - best of all, perhaps, are Dennis Hopper (as a prescient Philistine General), Michael Gambon (the Philistine ruler) and Daniel Massey (as a learned Jewish elder). Still, though Liz Hurley is ideally cast as Delilah, her performance is too modern - and, consequently, the character's ultimate redemption lacks conviction; as for Eric Thal's Samson, the script may have made him more conflicted than Victor Mature's take in the De Mille version - but again, rather than evoke the traits one should associate with this Biblical character, the actor's boyish looks merely bring to mind the pumped-up heroes of juvenile sword-and-sorcery films and TV series of recent vintage...

Incidentally, I only rented this because my father had been whining about "The Bible Collection" on DVD for months (I brought him MOSES [1995] at the same time but, even if it featured Ben Kingsley, Frank Langella and Christopher Lee, opted not to watch it myself); eventually, he too - who had caught many of Hollywood's classic historical epics when new - was ultimately unimpressed, and readily admitted that these newer incarnations offered no competition!