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When I was in elementary school, my father returned from a business trip with a treasure in his briefcase: A book of 10 paper dolls featuring great black entertainers, each with a short biography and several detailed costumes from his or her best-loved films.

Cutting out the paper dolls and costumes was more than an exercise in dexterity: It was my entré e into the intoxicating world of black cinema. This is where I first encountered names like Dorothy Dandridge, Paul Robeson, Hattie McDaniel, Bill Robinson, and Ethel Waters.

My interest in black Hollywood and media portrayals has long outlasted those paper dolls (which I recently replaced for nostalgia's sake). But now some of those paper dolls are coming to life again with the DVD debut of 12 historic films, five of them from black Hollywood's heyday—just in time for Black History Month.

It's easy to view the earliest of these films with a sense of outrage, as many of the outdated images and mischaracterizations of African-Americans offend modern sensibilities. (Indeed, the first three films begin with a disclaimer to this effect.) Many black Americans found them offensive, even during their era. Still, it's important to recognize that these films often represented a backhanded advance of sorts.

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The first all-black feature film from a major studio, this musical tells the story of Zekiel (Daniel L. Haynes), a young sharecropper who struggles to resist the forces of gambling and a beautiful-but-wicked girl named Chick (Nina Mae McKinney). Zekiel becomes a preacher following a dramatic conversion scene (featuring music by the Dixie Jubilee Singers), but is unable to stay away from Chick (who seems to have her own conversion of sorts), with disastrous results.

Not surprisingly, this film feels like "ground zero" for several stereotypes and is often a jarring view in that regard. Yet director King Vidor captures moments that feel very genuine—like the performance of Pappy (90-year-old ex-slave Harry Gray), who comforts his repentant son. The music, too, is beautiful. McKinney's performance set the stage for hard-living bad girls to come (hello, Carmen Jones?). Parts of the movie are filmed in a documentary style, making it visually interesting—and, perhaps, lending an unfortunate implication of veracity. Features include commentary by film scholar Donald Bogle and artist/educator Avery Clayton, and two musical shorts—one of which features McKinney and the famed dancing duo The Nicholas Brothers (the surviving brother, Fayard, died January 24).

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Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Green Pastures attempts (ahem) to tell stories from the Old Testament with the folkloric sensibility of rural African-Americans. It includes a cast of adorable Sunday school children, their patient teacher, and a heavenly host (the Hall Johnson Choir) which follows every word of "De Lawd"—played with gentle wonder by a dignified Rex Ingram. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (who later appeared on The Jack Benny Program) plays Noah, who wants to know if he can bring two kegs onto the ark. Actor LeVar Burton and authors Herb Boyd and Ed Guerrero provide commentary. The vintage shorts Rufus Jones for President (with Ethel Waters as the mother of young Rufus Jones, played by 7-year-old Sammy Davis, Jr.) and An All-Colored Vaudeville Show give startling insights into the mores of the day. Where else can you find an adoring mother singing to her son that he can be anything, as long as he stays on his side of the fence?

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In this musical, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson plays Joe Jackson, a childlike but genuinely likable man who runs into trouble when, instead of going to church to keep "an appointment with repentance," he's injured in a bar. As he recovers, the forces of good and evil (Louis Armstrong plays one demon, and Rex Ingram—"De Lawd" from Green Pastures—is Lucifer, Jr.) battle over his soul. Ethel Waters plays Petunia, Joe's longsuffering wife, who finally reaches a breaking point when she discovers him with Georgia Brown (Lena Horne). Waters' performance is exceptional—her girlish soprano on songs like "Cabin in the Sky," "Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" and "Taking a Chance on Love" and affectionate manner bring a gentle humanity to what is essentially a Mammy role. Ruby Dandridge (mother of Dorothy and Vivian) has a bit part, and a young Fayard Nicholas dances in the Jacksons' kitchen—one of several great dance numbers. Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington are under the same roof in the big club scene.

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