Set in the early 1900s in the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina, which serves as home to a black fishing community, the story focuses on the titular characters, crippled beggar Porgy, who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, and the drug-addicted Bess, who lives with stevedore Crown, the local bully.

• Samuel Goldwyn Productions
• Columbia Pictures
• Sidney Poitier
• Dorothy Dandridge
• Sammy Davis Jr.
• Pearl Bailey
• Brock Peters
• Diahann Carroll
• Leslie Scott
• Ruth Attaway