Delilah

Studio: Wicked Pictures
Director: Michael Raven
Cast: jessica drake, Herschel Savage, Kaylani Lei, Sammie Rhodes, Hillary Scott, Randy Spears, Veronica Hart

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

Other than the works of Shakespeare, I suppose, there is no more fertile place to mine stories than the Bible. Even for porn.

Of course, any pornographer going to that bestseller for plots runs the risk of seeming precious, self important. Then again, if we have learned anything in our time together, precious sometimes sells.

“Ah, sweet Christy: I needed her more than any man ever needed a woman,” says Samson Nazarite (Herschel Savage), the Master of the Universe whose devotion to his career drove Christy (Hillary Scott) away. Samson’s immediate regret of Christy’s departure (he chose to go to a conference with Phyllis Stein & Associates rather than on a lovers’ cruise) seems abrupt in light of how he treated her, but even more abrupt is the way Savage takes to Delilah (jessica drake), the frank hairdresser he takes up with soon after.

drake hardly cracks a smile the whole movie; she is a svelte dragon lady.

The graying Savage is a fine actor who, along with Randy Spears, represents porn’s mature leading men. A clever trick in adult movies is channeling all the dialogue into voiceovers. These Savage delivers well, but he also has the personal gravitas required of the role.

Unfortunately the movie is lousy with gravitas. Not only do we have the unholy mixing of Old and New Testaments with “Samson” and “Nazarite”(an OT term for a man who has taken a vow of abstinence), but Samson has also lost “Christ”y. That and the dim blueness of the sex scenes, in which the lovely drake is seldom fully revealed, makes me think that, as a porn movie, Delilah misses the point; even if jerking off to all the movies that cross my desk is not an option, the idea behind each and every porn movie should always be that I could if I wanted to.

Delilah is not a hit with Samson’s friends, Stephanie (Kaylani Lei) and Pete (Spears), nor with his mom (Veronica Hart), all of whom act their asses off in service to a film that is relentlessly depressing.

But ambitious. The story doesn’t give up. It has twists and turns that the cast stays with: Delilah has a past, Spears is not the friend he seems, Christy is still in the picture. Samson prays.

A bum (but, you know, one of those supernatural bums with a wealth of wisdom), approaches Samson outside a restaurant with, “What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?” (New Testament again). Oy.

Delilah is, like it or not, an adult movie for adults. There is not a lick of fantasy in it. We believe Spears and Savage, with their high-powered resumes, would actually have icy trophy partners. We believe that men like that might search for redemption in the wrong places. I even believe that certain couples would be turned on by this movie – I just don’t know any.

drake, unfortunately, plays an unlikeable character and it works. We don’t want to not like jessica drake.

Delilah is the elusive “real movie that happens to have sex in it” that the big adult companies strive for. Not a lot of sex, either; the best-lit scene is with Lei and Spears, and Hillary Scott never appears in anything less than a bikini.

Though the movie ends with Samson getting a second chance – and literally praying for one – the journey there is decidedly un-porny. What does it profit a porn movie to gain a good script but lose my erection?