Samson and Delilah

Ah, yes, Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah. From the guy who directed The Ten Commandments, King of Kings, Sign of the Cross and The Greatest Show on Earth, among many, many others. But Samson and Delilah is the one with the most cheese. So kick back and break out the wine...

... or we can just get a few gallons of water and wait a bit -- Jesus said he would swing by after he gets off work. He digs DeMille flicks, but can get kind of snarky about things not being how He remembers them...

DeMille Biblical epics are pretentious, overblown filmmaking at its most extravagant. The sets are enormous, the extras legion, the Technicolor so lurid it should be advertising a peepshow -- and there is usually plenty of cleavage, herds of scantily clad dancing girls and muscle men, also a few rounds of light-to-moderate bondage. And, oh, the dialogue, delivered in performances that are either wooden or scenery-devouring, but nowhere in between. "Where's ya God now, Samson?" Indeed.

First, we have Victor Mature as Samson, leader of the Danites. Samson's favorite things are drinking, gambling, stealing and chasing Philistine tail -- yeah, i know, sounds like Rob Ford or Oscar Goodman. But, unlike them, Samson has genuine qualifications for the gig, namely, super-strength. Actually, that's his only qualification, but it is a pretty awesome one.

Still, Victor Mature is welcome in any film. He was laid-back and self-mocking, but could bring beefcake or tough guy when needed. Also, I knew a guy once whose grandfather had been a refrigerator repairman. One day, he went to repair Victor Mature's refrigerator, the two hit it off and became buddies. Also, he was the only one of Rita Hayworth's paramours who was nice to her. (They were engaged, but then she ditched him for Orson Welles. One of the few times a woman made a mistake by choosing the genius over the handsome lug.) Willing to hang with the working class -- not just once, but many times, as a friend -- and kind to chronically depressed, terminally exploited women. Victor Mature is A-OK in my book.

And we have Delilah, played by Hedy Lamarr. It's interesting to watch Hedy Lamarr movies now, knowing that she was a brilliant woman who helped invent the technology that led to the cell phone. Because none of that reads on screen. Beautiful, one of the the truly great faces, but seemingly with little-to-nothing going on in there. Although maybe she was just checked out -- she did once say "Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid," although Samson and Delilah also demands that she do a lot of bouncing and slinking and pouting. And she wears some insane Biblical temptress drag courtesy of Edith Head. That cape? Made of real peacock feathers. From the peacocks on DeMille's lawn. I shit you not.

So, to the movie. Some Philistines beat up some Danites, someone rushes to tell Samson but he don't care. In fact, he takes the opportunity to ditch his girl Miriam and take off to play stalker at his favorite Philistine babe, Semadar. Semadar has shiny armor and weapons and a chariot and is kind of a proto-Khaleesi in style. Except played by Angela Lansbury. Yes, Jessica Fletcher, badass warrior woman in a studded midriff top

Really, it's not that far off. Before she wore Quacker Factory sweaters and solved mysteries in time to get the senior discount on the early bird special, Angela Lansbury usually played some sort of sexy, second-lead bad girl. She played a Wild West hooker who was mean to Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls, she was a trampy maid who helps drive Ingrid Bergman insane in Gaslight...

Semadar is betrothed to Ahtur, some Philstine honcho but Samson wants her anyway. Of course, Delilah, Semadar's little sister wants Samson, but he's uninterested in her...

But Samson has a plan. See, the Saran -- not the plastic wrap, but the leader of Dan-land or Philistinia or wherever we are -- is coming to hunt a lion. Samson thinks if he can kill the lion first, maybe he can swap a dead lion for a live girl. Of course, Delilah thinks the live girl will be her, so she helps Samson get to the lion first. Or should i say "lion" because it's pretty obvious that what's happening is A) a guy who is about six inches shorter than Mature and wearing a bad wig mambos with an toothless lion, and B) Victor Mature wrestles an empty lion suit.

Amazingly, Victor Mature manages to win a battle against an  inanimate object. All the hunters show up late and are astonished that Samson killed a "lion" with his bare hands.

And now we have George Sanders as Saran! I am always happy to see George Sanders. No one does jaded and over it better than George Sanders, Addison DeWitt HimSelf, the man who fled the Russian Revolution, married two Gabor sisters, made over 100 films and left a suicide note that opened "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored..."

George Sanders hands Jessica Fletcher over to Victor Mature. All the Philistines are pissed but come to his wedding anyway because they're greedy boozehounds. Samson decides to show off that he ain't no dopey Danite by asking them a riddle. They cannot solve it until Hedy Lamarr hints that they should ask Jessica Fletcher, who totally gives it up to Ahtur in more ways than one...

Ouch, heifer! Hey, fight scene!

 

The other Philistines kill Semadar and her dad and burn the house down. Samson and Delilah escape. He disappears into the city...

Delilah goes from annoying kid sister to chief courtesan, where her primary gig is playing domina to Saran (like many all-powerful men, he pays a woman to treat him like crap). There is also a whiff of the Addison-to-Eve in Saran's attachment to Delilah -- he takes great pleasure in watching her and especially in watching her make suckers of everyone within range... except him. Edith Head rubs her hands together and mutters "You ain't seen nothin' yet" -- the array of 40's ankle-strap heels alone is astonishing.

The Philstines hassle the Danites, Victor Mature turns himself in. Then, he smites some ass!

So, who else to call but Delilah? She goes to capture Samson for Saran, but it just turns into a romantic interlude. A lot of drinking of wine and bathing in pools and playing harps and eating grapes but then...

Bam! Samson gets a call from his old girlfriend Miriam that shit is really bad in the hometown -- for a leader, Samson has quite a habit of just taking off to get wasted and laid until someone drags him back. Still, Delilah's jealous blah blah, tell me the secret of your strength or I'll cry blah blah...

Also, bear in mind that this is the second time some woman has "you don't love me"-d Samson into giving up a huge secret that will wreck everything if it gets out. But he rats himself out again and now we come to the Samson and Delilah money shot: The big haircut and the hauling away by The Man.

 And, sure, Saran promises Delilah, that no blade will touch Samson's skin, no blood will be shed. But, well, we've got a bunch of angry cops who've lost some of their own led by a jealous boyfriend. And she didn't say anything about not blinding him...

 So, Samson is blinded and chained to a big wheat-grinding wheel -- just like what happened to Conan in Conan the Barbarian, except all the villagers come to shout and throw things at him and the guards knock him around. Hedy Lamarr shows up and is all stoked to see him until she realizes that he's blind.

She reminds Saran of his promise but, hey, he got around that. One doesn't become Lord of the Five Cities by being a nice guy and leaving the loopholes alone. Not that he's the one who's really to blame, as he reminds Delilah when she becomes oh-so-tearful and oh-so-sorry. And he just reads her to filth.

So, the plan is to drag Samson to the temple of Dagon, because apparently the Philistines worship the same god that the creepy queen and Wilt Chamberlain do in Conan the Destroyer. Yeah, i've never touched a Bible except to move one out of the way in a hotel room, but i do know every damn second of both Conan movies. You have your sacred texts, i have mine...

Destroyer, 58:27 "Nothing hurts you. Only pain."

So, as we all know Samson is gonna knock down the temple. But, first, some bullshit. Hedy Lamarr is still really sad about Samson. Then Samson's old girlfriend Miriam and her little brother Saul show up to beg for mercy. George Sanders says he'll let Hedy Lamarr decide and of course she's all like "Fuck no, bitch, I'll let them keep humiliating and torturing his ass until he dies before I'll let you have him back."

Yup, that's Russ Tamblyn as Saul, future king of the Danites. "When you're a Danite you're a Danite all the way...."

So, more booing and throwing of things. And they've set up some kind of special little people torment for him. Not badass Tyrion Lannister little people, but drunken Munchkin asshole little people.

But Delilah finally decides to lead him to the pillars so he can knock down the temple. Because, seriously, no one noticed that his hair grew back.

Barbarians, 28:04 "... To crush your enemies,
to see them driven before you, to hear the lamentation of their women."

And the temple falls, crushing everyone.  You have to remember: This was before CGI. A herd of workers spent weeks building that whole damn set to the actual size you see. Every one of those extras was a real live person collecting a paycheck and craft services.

If i have to have cinematic Biblical propaganda laid on me, i'll take the Technicolor camp madness of Samson and Delilah over some bullshit about Greg Kinnear's kid who shoulda stayed in heaven or some Kirk Cameron B.S. No diggity.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

I recall being excited to see Bram Stoker's Dracula when it came out. I was still in college and living in Alphabet City with a bunch of film/art students and several of us got,  in the parlance of the time, "rippin' stoned" and went to see it at the Village East Cinema, in the old main theater.

I now realize that Coppola's goal in Dracula was to make the schmanciest B-movie ever. An homage to Universal and Hammer, both studios and aesthetics to which this film owes much. Also, let us not forget that Francis got his start working on Roger Corman's gothic horror movies, including A.D. on a few of his Vincent Price Poe flicks and getting his directorial feet wet on the creepy castle/wandering solider/Boris Karloff/Jack Nicholson/should-be-a-better movie The Terror.

So, we open with some lovely Javanese shadow puppets and a flashback to the birth of Dracula, so to speak. Where he went to war, impaled a bunch of people, his fiancee thought he was dead and killed herself, he cursed god and, presto, he's Dracula!

Clock the armor. The costumes in this movie are irrefutably spectacular, many referencing art or history or nature  and I do love me a some good costume design -- actually, that's a large part of the reason I wanted to see this movie when it came out. Coppola has said "I put most of my money in the costumes" and Eiko Ishioka gave him every penny of his money's worth and then some.

Another major reason was the casting of Gary Oldman as Dracula. Because before Gary Oldman was a B-movie villain or a Commissioner Gordon or a right-wing asshole, he was Sid Vicious in Love Kills.  No, seriously, he was Sid Vicious and every punk teen girl of the late 80's loved him for it. (Also, see Romeo Is Bleeding. Really.) The part where he reels around the chapel, screeching in Slobovian and cursing god and kicking over the holy water font -- it's pure Sid. (Although that's actually Lux Interior of the Cramps screaming. Diamanda Galas does the Dracula Brides screaming. Tom Waits does the madhouse screaming.)

But let us pause for a moment for one of the finest supporting actor turns of the 90's. Full disclosure: I worship Tom Waits like unto a very god. I have seen him play live and it was a life-changing experience. I interviewed him once and it was delightful; he told me that i was funny and it is a moment i still think of when i am feeling low... So,  Tom Waits plays Renfield, Dracula's maddened disciple in a performance that even a a non-fan has to admit is powerful and memorable -- he's revolting, deranged, pathetic but with this little lingering edge of reason clinging like the last leaf on the tree....

Oh, do you not remember Tom Waits? Because you saw Dracula on TV? I know, because those dreadful imbecilic fuckers who edit movies for television cut him out. To make room for commercials. They left in every fucking moment of "Whoa." but got rid of Tom Waits. So they could sell you Hot Pockets and Flonase. Miserable, rotten, filthy, wretched bastards!

But, now we're back to the B-movie hackery with our two leads -- the roles that most vexed me at the time. Mina Harker is Winona Ryder -- well, if you wanted Helena Bonham Carter, why didn't you hire Helena Bonham Carter? (Oh, that's right, she was off making Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at the time.) She's lame. And Keanu Reeves, as Jonathan Harker, he's worse. I mean, a lot, lot worse. Like Special Achievement in  Film Golden Raspberry worse. Like "maybe this will make people forget how lousy my daughter was in Godfather III" worse. But, when you think about it, the romantic leads in old horror movies are always annoying and mediocre and, I guess Winona manages that level. But Keanu... no. Although if Coppola really wanted to go balls-out on it, he should have gotten Nicholas Cage to play Jonathan. Or, i mean, he had Cary Elwes standing right there, who could have given B-movie leading-man realness, easy.

Yeah, I wanna choke him too.

So, yeah, Keanu has to go to the Carpathian Mountains ("Whoa."), leaving fiancee Mina behind with her rich, slutty friend Lucy. The Dracula's castle section is the most fun of the movie, with Coppola going all out on the effects -- and, nicely, they're not greenscreen, CGI bullshit. No, it's old-school double exposures, reverse film, miniatures, puppets -- all things used in old horror movies.

So Transylvania is alive with creepy disembodied shadows and upside-down rats and giant floating eyes and, of course, the vampire babes. Also, this is the one part where the Keanu "Whoa." school of acting works.

Gary Oldman has a grand time playing creepy old Dracula, unctuating the classic dialogue, like "The children of the night... what sweet music they make!" and that perennial chestnut about not drinking... wine. He also resembles a blend of Mr. Burns and the Duchess of Windsor with some Count von Count on top.

So, blah blah, Dracula packs his boxes of dirt and hops on the Demeter for London. In London, Mina pines for Keanu and slutty Lucy tries to decide whether to marry the doctor, the cowboy or the Lord. Lucy is played by Sadie Frost, who has great dresses and amazing hair and is far more fun and interesting than prissy Mina. So you know she's doomed....

But, since Lucy is so slutty, it is unsurprising that Dracula also decides to get some of that and begins appearing as a bat, a werewolf, a hot Eurotrash guy to drink her slutty, slutty blood. Seriously: Most horror films have sexual subtext, Dracula makes it so blatant that it's ridiculous. Lucy is supposed to be a flirtatious upper-class Victorian maiden , not a jaded queen dishing about the Pit Crew after a few cocktails in the Interior Illusions Lounge on RuPauls' Drag Race. Rather than sexual tension, we get writhing topless girl getting banged by a drooling werewolf, fangs bared, legs in the air -- someone made a figurine if you'd like to preserve this moment for display in a china cabinet.

Naturally, all of this vampire bangin' and blood drinkin' makes Lucy ill. Call in Dr. Van Helsing! Anthony Hopkins goes for the ridiculous with this role because, really, what else is there to do? He has a scar and an accent and literally humps one of the bros' legs at one point. (Jesus, if Coppola had used Nicholas Cage, they would have had to get everything on the first take before he and Hopkins chewed the scenery beyond repair.)

No, you're not Dracula. You're Van Helsing. Get over it!

And now, of course, Dracula reappears in London, all damn suave with Chris Cornell's old hair and immediately picks up Mina on the street. And takes her to the movies. (A movie with nekkid Victorian ladies -- Travis Bickle couldn't take a chick to a porno on the first date but, when you're the Prince of Darkness you can get away with it. Also, the magic lantern scene might remind you of the one in Sex and Fury, but i believe the homage is inadvertent.) 

There's also some business about a wolf escaped from the zoo and Lucy's still getting her blood drained and Keanu is still stuck in Transylvania ("Whoa.")

Lucy dies, Dracula takes Mina to the basement of Queen Gedren from Red Sonja -- y'know, where the Police shot the "Wrapped Around my Finger" video (because Dracula, the Evil Queen and Sting are all pals, naturally. Birds of a feather and all...). They get loaded on absinthe and babble and twirl around. Best friend dying, husband missing, presumed dead but, hey, this bitch is moving on.

... or she was, because now Keanu has appeared alive (Damn.) and Mina rushes off to marry him. Dracula cries a lot and turns old again and then decides to fully drain Lucy. Lucy "dies," becomes a vampire, eats some children and then Van Helsing and the rest of the bros drive a stake through her heart and chop her head off.

Then, of course, we have the mandatory return to the vampire's homeland -- not sure why this always has to happen, but it always does. There's the creepy castle, race against the setting sun, the female in jeopardy they have inexplicably decided to drag with them even closer to the danger. And, of course, the mandatory ending for ol' Dracula...

Bram Stoker's Dracula had a great pinball machine. They used to have one at Max Fish in NYC and they have one at the Pinball Hall of Fame now -- if you hit a certain sequence, Gary Oldman lights up and pops out of his coffin. As far as the movie, it's magically delicious eye candy and has two great performances. The rest is, well, "Whoa."

Ginger

Ginger is another film from that classic year, 1970 -- also the annus mirabulis of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Dinah East, The Party at Kitty and Stud's, Bloody Mama and no less than six vampire movies. It was the era of porno chic and pretty much everyone was working blue.

Ginger sounds totally reasonable on paper -- a "female James Bond," except where Cleopatra Jones crosses the genre with blaxploitation, Ginger crosses it with porn and sets it in New Jersey. The title role was played by Cheri Caffaro, born in Florida, raised in New York City.

Our heroine is even more likely than Bond to drop trou for a mission and she carries the nudity -- and the subsequent action -- far further than Her Majesty's Secret Service would ever dare. But, before anybody gets upset, let me point out that Ginger also has plenty of full frontal junk for those of you who prefer the pole to the hole.

Our heroine makes her big entrance in her bitchin yellow 'Vette ("cars courtesy Derio Oldsmobile Inc.") and goes to an office where she get her "mission." Which is to save the Jersey Shore -- there's some "rich kid" named "Rex" who's dealing drugs and blackmailing summer vacationers and the rich parents of Jersey are willing to throw down a hundred grand to keep the cops out of it. She also gets a cool super-spy briefcase with a gun and ammo and handcuffs and a camera and infrared film and some trail mix and one of  those little spray bottles of Evian and a matchbook that has most of the matches missing and...

Ginger heads off to the Shore, where we get a peep at our villain... Rex. Wearing eyeliner and a studded dog collar.

Really... this guy? What, was everyone else in jail or off fighting Tojo and this was the best villain they could find? Rex's gang consists of suburban whitebros bitching about their fathers' board of directors meetings. Except for the one black guy who is, of course, the drug hookup and is not rich. He's in it for one reason: As he explains, "You promised me all the ass I wanted. White ass." 

  Note pre-self tanner white lines, natural tits and old-school bush.

Ginger promptly infiltrates the gang by gyrating around a bar in hiphuggers and midriff top, thus arousing the prurient interest of one of the wealthy homosexuals in Rex's gang. (No, really, i mean the gang member played by an actor who was actually a gay porn star. Because back in the 70s you could get away with things like gay porn stars in "mainstream" films or a regular major network TV series about science.) This pisses off the ladies of the gang, who challenge Ginger to some kind of bikini catfight on the beach.

Whether it's fuckin' or kickin' ass, Ginger is gonna do whatever she has to do to get the job done. Ginger does not care how many times she must whip her top off or how many chicks she must hogtie with their own bikinis or how many guys she needs to strap down spread-eagle on a bed with piano wire around their balls, she is gonna clean up the Jersey Shore. If only she'd been around in the days of Pauly D.

Anyway, one of the gang girls bends Ginger's ear with an overly detailed account of her entry in the gang, precipitated by a run-in with the demon weed. "Then D.J. took out a joint, took a couple puffs on it and handed it to me... I don't know why in God's name I took it! I'll never know why, but I did!" Ginger comforts the girl by taking off her blouse and making out with her, basically because that's Ginger's modus operandi, regardless of the situation.

Who cares if she doesn't know how to button her shirt? She drinks with her pinkie out like a lady...

She manages to pump her new friend for info about the prostitution ring and of course friend winds up dead. Ginger flashes back to her friend and then to her brother begging her for help -- and totally flips out and strangles the gang member unlucky enough to be nearby. Flashback followed by violence is another Ginger modus operandi. Hey, it worked for Charles Bronson!

So, with the full fury of vengeance -- sure, she seems somewhat wooden and lethargic to the naked eye but, trust me, there is a roiling cauldron of emotions behind that deadpan stare -- Ginger decides to finish the gang off. One the way, there's plenty of breaks for tricks, blow jobs, dominance/humiliation scenarios, various ways of tying people up and the aforementioned flashbacks and castrations.

The adventures of Ginger actually continued into two more films, The Abductors and Girls Are for Loving. Cheri Caffaro went on to a guest spot on Barretta and wrote the script for sororitysploitation flick H.O.T.S. before eventually dropping out of showbusiness, but producer Don Strain is still working -- he produced all the High School Musical flicks. I think we can agree that Ginger and its sequels were the zenith of his career.