The 1959 MGM film advertised here was based on George Gershwin’s 1935 opera, Porgy and Bess, set on the fictional Catfish Row in the Black community of Charleston, South Carolina, and considered the first great American opera. It was based on the novel Porgy (1925) by DuBose Heyward, who also collaborated on the film’s libretto and lyrics with Ira Gershwin. In the film’s screenplay, however, the opera’s recitatives were turned into spoken dialogue in an effort to popularize it (this also reflected the fact that the voices of both the film’s stars, Dandridge and Poitier, had to be dubbed here). The poster illustrates the three leads, including Dorothy Dandrige as Bess in a suggestive pose. It also promotes MGM’s use of the latest technologies: updated versions of Technicolor and stereophonic sound, as well as the new TODD-AO wide-screen film technique that had been introduced in Oklahoma! (1955). Porgy and Bess was shown only briefly in major cities after its release and was the last film produced by the legendary Samuel Goldwyn. Its limited success was partly due to its themes of rape, murder, violence, drug-addiction, and prostitution, and to its controversial depiction of Black life by white people, not least as the civil rights movement gained momentum. While some of the opera’s songs, most notably Gershwin’s beautiful “Summertime,” remain beloved, the Black author and activist James Baldwin described the film in a review as “Grandiose, foolish, and heavy with the stale perfume of self-congratulation … “ He added, nonetheless, that “It is—or was, until Mr. Preminger got his hands on it—an extraordinarily good-natured and moving show.”