null
“Porgy and Bess”

Considering that I first wrote about this three years ago and, as I mentioned in my piece about Maya Angeiou’s screenplay for “Georgia Georgia,” her actual first film appearance was as an uncredited dancer in this film, I thought, why not revisit it?




A question that gets asked a lot is, why hasn’t the 1959 film version of George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” been shown or seen anywhere for, literally, decades?

Furthermore, the film, starring Sidney Poitier as Porgy, Dorothy Dandridge as Bess, and Sammy Davis Jr. as Sportin’ Life (pictured above) directed by Otto Preminger, and produced by independent Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn, has never been available on video in any format at any time… Well, not exactly; but I’ll get to that in a second.

With the exception of special screenings every few years around the world, such as in New York at the Ziegfield Theater back in 2007, in Seattle around 2008 (a reportedly a rare 70MM print from Europe), and in Switzerland a few years ago, the last time the film was actually seen by the public at large was when the ABC Network showed it as a Sunday Night Movie, during the late 60’s. It was also broadcast in the early 70’s on a local TV station KTLA in Los Angeles, which had access to the Goldwyn film library for a brief while.

And that’s about it.

The film hasn’t been shown on TV since then, and anyone who claims that they’ve seen it on Turner Classic Movies or some other cable channel, would be incorrect (I called TCM to check, and they confirmed that they have never broadcast the film).

Yes, there are some crummy pan and scan bootleg copies, and I have read of a supposedly good looking German DVD copy of the film in its correct aspect ratio, but in a severely trimmed 115-minute version, from the longer original 138-minute cut, and without its overture, intermission and the exit music.

There is also a 35MM print in excellent shape, and a 4 track steno magnetic track at the UCLA archive library, but it’s almost never loaned out for screenings.

I know it’s all confusing, and, as a result, the film is considered one of the great “lost” movies – an important film that, somehow, has been unavailable to the public.

So why?

Well, it’s pretty simple. The basic fact is that, through a contractual agreement, rights to the film reverted to the Gershwin estate, from the Goldwyn company, in 1974, and the estate has kept the film underwraps since then, rarely allowing it to be seen anywhere except for very special occasions. Reportedly the estate was never happy with the film version, since a lot of the original music was cut out, and they were also very displeased with the orchestral arrangements of the music.

But it’s a bit more complicated than that. It turns out that there are actually two different Gershwin estates that, reportedly, have never gotten along with each other, and both claim ownership of the film.




Furthermore, there’s also an issue involving MGM. Years ago, the studio bought the ancillary rights to most of Goldwyn’s films, claiming Porgy and Bess as well, and the studio has made claims that any DVD or cable licensing release, as well as the required restoration, has to be done by them. However, that too has gotten rather complicated since Warner Bros now owns the Goldwyn library, so they now rightfully could make the same claims that MGM used to.

So it’s a bit of a mess.

If there is one bright spot, for those who are still hoping to see the film, the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress selected it in 2011 for preservation, saying that it was “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” and an “overlooked masterpiece.” So maybe after the preservation work is done, there might finally be an opportunity for the public to see the film… maybe.