Commentary
Salome ranks with Jezebel and Delilah as one of the most notorious temptresses in the Bible, if not all history and literature. Although she is unnamed in the New (or Old) Testament, first century historian Flavius Josephus identified the daughter of King Herod as Salome III in his “Jewish Antiquities.” She has been immortalized in paintings, poems, plays, ballets, operas, and films.
Hollywood has never been able to resist adapting a famous story multiple times. There were two silent movies about Salome, from 1918 and 1923, but after the second treatment, the story wouldn’t be adapted for another thirty years. The 1953 “Salome” was the first sound and the first color version of the story. A Columbia Picture, it starred Rita Hayworth in the title role. Although it was the top-earning film of the year, this movie is now rather obscure. Perhaps the most famous artistic work about the Jewish temptress is now Richard Strauss’s 1905 one-act opera “Salome.”…