Subtle Serpent Symbolism within Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949)

American-born Episcopalian Cecil Blount DeMille¹ (1881–1959), affectionately
known as “CB,” is a legendary co-founder of Hollywood, a progenitor of Paramount Pictures, and a legitimate but unsung auteur who helped turn an obscure Californian orange grove into a movie colony whose name became the synonym for filmmaking worldwide (Birchard 2004; Blanke 2018; DeMille and Hayne 1960; Edwards 1988; Essoe and Lee 1970; Eyman 2010; Higashi 1985, 1994; Higham 1973; Koury 1959; Louvish 2008; Noerdlinger 1956; Orrison 1999; Presley and Vieira 2014; Ringgold and Bodeen 1969). As a trail-blazing pioneer of Tinsel Town and a producerdirector² of over seventy feature films, DeMille helped institute the “Age of Hollywood” (Paglia 1994, 12), significantly contributed to the classical narrative style during its Golden Age, and became the undisputed master of the American biblical epic with his four indelible classics: The Ten Commandments (1923), The King of Kings (1927), Samson and Delilah (1949), and The Ten Commandments (1956).³ Despite eager audiences, and phenomenal box office success as a self-confessed pop culture professional (DeMille and Hayne 1960, 195), DeMille was routinely decried, dismissed, or devalued by critics. For example, Norman Bel Geddes claimed that: “Inspirationally and imaginatively, CB was sterile. His stories, situations and characters were, almost without exception, unintelligent, unintuitive, and psychologically adolescent” (quoted in Green 1997, 191). Yet, upon a closer inspection of his films; especially his biblical oeuvre, such professional disdain was not justified then, and is not justified now.