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In the extras, film scholar Todd Boyd offers interpretive comments and professor Drew Casper explains how Minnelli used camera angles and song-dramatic integration in the storytelling effort. Lena Horne, Fayard Nicholas and Anderson's wife and daughter also provide commentary.

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Like Cabin In the Sky, Stormy Weather is largely a vehicle for performances by its all-star cast, which includes Fats Waller and the original Hi-de-ho man, Cab Calloway. Bill Williamson (Bill "Bojangles" Robinson) reminisces about his career and his on-again, off-again relationship with Selina Rogers (Lena Horne). Robinson was near the end of his real-life career and is not quite believable as Lena Horne's romantic interest, but is anyone really thinking about that, once he breaks into one of his amazing dance numbers? Horne gives a landmark performance of "Stormy Weather," which also includes a dance interlude by Katherine Dunham, the dancer and anthropologist. Harold and Fayard Nicholas give one of their most famous performances—an extended scene in which they tap up and down stairs, leaping over one another and falling into splits with their trademark grace and skill. Perhaps equally remarkable? The scene was filmed in one take.

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This film tells the story of a light-skinned black woman (Jeanne Crain) who returns to her Southern home after passing for white and attending nursing school in the North. Despite the presence of her loving grandmother (Ethel Waters), Pinky can't get used to living by the racial codes of the South. She worries, too, about how to resolve a romance with a white man who doesn't know the secret of her identity.

With the help of Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore, Drew's great aunt), the aristocratic white woman for whom she provides nursing care, Pinky realizes that unless she can be herself, she won't be happy. She needs the inner strength she's gained when Miss Em wills Pinky her estate. Pinky is an interesting window into its time, and all three of the leading women portray relatable characters. Still, the casting choice of Crain, a white actress who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for the role, rather than Lena Horne or another light-skinned black actress seems designed to make viewers say "Boy, racism sure is terrible when it affects white people!" Additionally, the movie ends in a way typical of a "tragic mulatto" picture.

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This movie takes place on the fictional island of Santa Maria, a British colony whose inhabitants all deal with the issue of race—either as rich plantation owners, plantation workers, people desiring romantic relationships across the black-white color line, or a white family who discovers—gasp!—that they have colored ancestry and, given an unspoken one-drop rule, are apparently colored. Part murder mystery, part romance, the film features Harry Belafonte as David Boyeur, a young politician who must choose between his political aspirations and his relationship with Mavis Norman (Joan Fontaine), and Dorothy Dandridge as Margot Seaton, who attracts the attention of David Archer (John Justin). A young Joan Collins plays Jocelyn Fleury, who isn't who she thinks she is … or is she?

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