--- title: 'Porgy and Bess (1959)' type: 'film' director: 'Rouben Mamoulian' released: '1959-01-01' runtime_minutes: 138 genres: - 'Drama' - 'Music' - 'Romance' countries: - 'United States' canonical: 'https://cinepixo.com/movies/porgy-and-bess-1959' review_count: 0 imdb: 'https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053182/' publisher: 'CinePixo' --- # Porgy and Bess (1959) 1959 · 138 min · Drama, Music, Romance · United States ## Synopsis Porgy and Bess is a 1959 American musical drama film directed by Otto Preminger, and starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge in the titular roles. It is based on the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, in turn based on Heyward's 1925 novel Porgy, as well as Heyward's subsequent 1927 non-musical stage adaptation, co-written with his wife Dorothy. The film's screenplay, which turned the operatic recitatives into spoken dialogue, was very closely based on the opera and was written by N. Richard Nash. In 2011, the film was chosen for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. ## Credits - **Director:** [Rouben Mamoulian](https://cinepixo.com/people/rouben-mamoulian), [Otto Preminger](https://cinepixo.com/people/otto-preminger), [Paul Helmick](https://cinepixo.com/people/paul-helmick) - **Screenplay:** [N. Richard Nash](https://cinepixo.com/people/n-richard-nash) - **Original Music Composer:** [George Gershwin](https://cinepixo.com/people/george-gershwin) - **Producer:** [Samuel Goldwyn](https://cinepixo.com/people/samuel-goldwyn) - **Director of Photography:** [Leon Shamroy](https://cinepixo.com/people/leon-shamroy) - **Editor:** [Daniel Mandell](https://cinepixo.com/people/daniel-mandell) ## Cast - [Claude Akins](https://cinepixo.com/people/claude-akins) as Detective - [Dorothy Dandridge](https://cinepixo.com/people/dorothy-dandridge) - [Joel Fluellen](https://cinepixo.com/people/joel-fluellen) as Robbins - [Ivan Dixon](https://cinepixo.com/people/ivan-dixon) as Jim - [Maya Angelou](https://cinepixo.com/people/maya-angelou) - [Sidney Poitier](https://cinepixo.com/people/sidney-poitier) - [Diahann Carroll](https://cinepixo.com/people/diahann-carroll) as Clara - [Clarence Muse](https://cinepixo.com/people/clarence-muse) as Peter - [Ruth Attaway](https://cinepixo.com/people/ruth-attaway) as Serena Robbins - [Sammy Davis Jr.](https://cinepixo.com/people/sammy-davis-jr) as Sportin' Life - [Geoffrey Holder](https://cinepixo.com/people/geoffrey-holder) - [William Walker](https://cinepixo.com/people/william-walker) as Undertaker - [Pearl Bailey](https://cinepixo.com/people/pearl-bailey) as Maria - [Brock Peters](https://cinepixo.com/people/brock-peters) as Crown - [Maurice Manson](https://cinepixo.com/people/maurice-manson) as Coroner ## Criticism on CinePixo No reviews published yet. Source: https://cinepixo.com/movies/porgy-and-bess-1959 Film facts: Wikidata (Q374526); synopsis from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Reviews, themes and notes are the work of this site's members.