Product Details

• Actors: Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis Jr., Pearl Bailey, Brock Peters
• Format: NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• DVD Release Date: January 1, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (105 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00003CX3S
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,355 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Porgy and Bess" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

113 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh, oh, ohhhhhhhh--I want it, I want it!, March 23, 2005

By 

Melanie N. Lee "mnl_1221" (Corona, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Porgy and Bess (DVD)

I believe Porgy and Bess was the first movie I ever saw, when I was about three years old, in a movie theater in the Queensbridge Projects, Long Island City, NY. (My second movie was West Side Story.) Porgy and Bess has only appeared a couple of times on TV, and a few times in special screenings. The last screening was probably the year 2000 at either Brooklyn College or the Long Island University campus in Brooklyn, which had a panel discussion afterward over the film's supposed racism and other issues.

I'm not often one to knock political correctness, but please, knock your PC fears aside and release this movie! It's inspiring, fun, glorious, exciting, etc., etc., with wonderful performances by Dorothy Dandridge (Bess), Sammy Davis, Jr. (who dances up a storm as Sportin' Life), Pearl Bailey (Maria), and Brock Peters (outstanding as Crown). I've only thought this recently: Sidney Poitier, although he does an admirable job, is miscast as Porgy. Porgy is a good soul, but Poitier is too refined for an uneducated street beggar; Poitier's Porgy, I imagine, went to college to study law and had a bad accident which devastated his life. Too bad Brock Peters couldn't play two roles at once.

The movie even has a scene, which I think is in the play Porgy but isn't in the opera, where Serena offers to take an orphaned baby given to Bess, and Bess refuses.

I love P&B's verve, spirituality, fun, and grand Gershwin music. I've seen the full operatic version on Broadway (by the Houston Grand Opera) in the 1970s and at the Metropolitan Opera House in the 1980s or 90s, as well as the truncated New York City Opera version in 2000. Now please do us Porgy and Bess fans a favor and release this movie on DVD, too! (I'd prefer it on VHS, but people aren't making those anymore, are they?)

BTW, I am an African-American woman with a love of musical theater and American opera.

92 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It ain't necessarily so...., April 18, 2002

By 

Catharsise (Washington, D.C., District of Columbia United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Porgy and Bess (DVD)

Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis Jr., Brock Peters, Pearl Bailey, Diahann Carroll, Ivan Dixon, Maya Angelou and on and on and on. Shantytown, a deep south "colored" fishing ghetto and all its inhabitants are musically portrayed in this classic movie. No contemporary remake (cinematic or stage) can capture the ambience or flavor of the performances in this 1959 classic. The songs; SUMMERTIME, I'M ON MY WAY, IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO, BESS YOU IS MY WOMAN NOW, etc., echo in one's memory. This all-star AA ensemble will enthrall you.

Poitier (Porgy), without legs below the knees and forced to use his arms and hands for mobility, plays the protagonist against Brock Peters' (Crown) "whole man" antagonist in the struggle for Dorothy Dandridge (Bess), the physical but morally "scarlet-lettered" beauty of the community. Sammy Davis Jr. (Sportin' Life) the street-wise city slicker, like a devil on her shoulder, is always there to tempt Bess with dreams of New York City (where her beauty can be "appreciated"), and the "feel-good" drug heroin. Brock, in jail because of his violent temper and the desire to posess Bess, escapes and lurks in the background as Portier becomes sweet on Bess and sways her to the real things in life, like community and love. Their confrontation is inevitable.

The struggle between good and evil is obvious as is the desire of the characters to overcome life's adversities. Set in a not so unreal, prejudicial era (circa 1930's), the characters manage to "live" their meager lives with hope and in the belief of God. However, Porgy and Bess is a story of belief in one's self. It is set to some of the most stirring music ever produced. The portrayal of life's condition reverberates in the music, but especially in the verses of this song: "It ain't necessarily so, the things you are liable to read in the bible, it ain't necessarily so".

53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Porgy and Bess fan, October 13, 2001

By 

Daria (Palmdale, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Porgy and Bess (DVD)

I remember seeing Porgy and Bess starring Sydney Poitier as a young teen. I have been searching the internet for months trying to obtain a copy of this movie. I love the soundtrack and would love to own this classic on DVD or VHS. Please release it soon. This is a must have for anyone who is a fan of Sydney Poitier as well!!!