Samson (1936)

Samson is a French film first released in 1936, directed by Maurice Tourneur.  The film is based on a play by Henri Bernstein and stars Harry Baur, Gaby Morlay, André Luguet, Suzy Prim and Gabrielle Dorziat.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Wealth is not enough for financier Jacques Brachart.  With his immense fortune, he intends to buy his way into high society to show the world what a great man he is.  He chooses as his wife Anne-Marie d’Andeline, who, coming from an impoverished aristocratic family, can hardly refuse his offer of marriage.  He marries for status, she marries for money, and neither loves the other.  Predictably, Anne-Marie takes a lover, Jérôme Le Govain, a playboy who owes his wealth to Brachart.  When Brachart hears of his wife’s infidelity, he is furious and embarks on a terrible revenge, at the risk of ruining himself...

Whilst not among Maurice Tourneur’s best work, Samson is a powerful indictment of the moral failings of France’s higher bourgeoisie in the early 1930s.  The sins of excessive greed, debauched hedonism and marital infidelity were highly topical and featured in many films of the era, most successfully in Marcel L’Herbier’s L’Argent (1929).  This film was adapted from a stage play by the playwright Henri Bernstein and stars two of the biggest actors in French cinema at the time – Harry Baur and Gaby Morlay.   Today, the film looks like a somewhat dated melodrama and its moralising painfully unsubtle, but Baur’s performance, skilfully combining villainy and pathos, lends it a dramatic intensity and poignancy which makes it hard not to sympathise with the tragic plight of his character.

© James Travers 2008

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