Exclusive: MGM has set Dee Rees to write and direct a feature film adaptation of George Gershwin’s acclaimed Porgy and Bess. Irwin Winkler and Charles Winkler will produce. The film rights were granted to MGM by the Gershwin Estate, which worked closely with Winkler and Rees to secure them.
Originally written as an opera and adapted from the 1925 DuBose Heyward novel by composer George Gershwin with libretto by Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin, Porgy and Bess is a tale set in the slums of Charleston, Sc. There in Catfish Row, a disabled beggar named Porgy tries to rescue Bess from her violent lover Crown, and drug dealer Sportin’ Life. It first reached Broadway in 1935, and was turned into a 1959 film that Otto Preminger directed with Sidney Poitier playing Porgy, Dorothy Dandridge as Bess, Brock Peters as Crown, Sammy Davis Jr as Sportin’ Life, and a cast that included Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll.
Originally written as an opera and adapted from the 1925 DuBose Heyward novel by composer George Gershwin with libretto by Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin, Porgy and Bess is a tale set in the slums of Charleston, Sc. There in Catfish Row, a disabled beggar named Porgy tries to rescue Bess from her violent lover Crown, and drug dealer Sportin’ Life. It first reached Broadway in 1935, and was turned into a 1959 film that Otto Preminger directed with Sidney Poitier playing Porgy, Dorothy Dandridge as Bess, Brock Peters as Crown, Sammy Davis Jr as Sportin’ Life, and a cast that included Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll.
- 2/11/2020
- by Mike Fleming Jr
- Deadline Film + TV
Prepare to lose an afternoon or three: The Library of Congress announced today that it has digitized hundreds of hours of film and is making them available for viewing, free of charge, on its new “National Screening Room” website.
Care to check out home movies of Liza Minnelli’s second birthday party, hosted by Ira Gershwin? Thomas Edison footage of Coney Island at night, circa 1905? Lbj’s “Daisy” political spot with the little girl and the nuke (pictured above)? Have at them.
“The National Screening Room is designed to open up the Library’s collections,” said curator Mike Mashon, head of the Library’s Moving Image Section, “making otherwise unavailable movies freely accessible to viewers nationwide and around the world.”
With more than 1.6 million items in its collection, the Library of Congress calls itself “the largest and most comprehensive archive of moving images in the world.” Today’s announcement initiates...
Care to check out home movies of Liza Minnelli’s second birthday party, hosted by Ira Gershwin? Thomas Edison footage of Coney Island at night, circa 1905? Lbj’s “Daisy” political spot with the little girl and the nuke (pictured above)? Have at them.
“The National Screening Room is designed to open up the Library’s collections,” said curator Mike Mashon, head of the Library’s Moving Image Section, “making otherwise unavailable movies freely accessible to viewers nationwide and around the world.”
With more than 1.6 million items in its collection, the Library of Congress calls itself “the largest and most comprehensive archive of moving images in the world.” Today’s announcement initiates...
- 9/26/2018
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
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