The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman has been given a Blu-ray release by Universal.

Based on Ernest J. Gaines’ novel, the made-for-TV movie, directed by John Korty, whose best-known work it remains, was first broadcast in January 1974 with just one commercial break. It went on to be nominated for 12 Emmys, winning 8 of them plus a ninth for Cicely Tyson who received two, one for Best Actress in a Drama and another for Best Actress in a Special, a short-lived award given for Best Actor and Actress-Series and Best Actor and Actress-Special. The other three winners were Alan Alda for M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Hal Holbrook for Pueblo.

The powerful film was an eye-opener for many who had never fully understood the extent of the hardships and cruelties afforded freed slaves who remained in the South after the Civil War. Tyson, who concealed her age until 2014, was born in January 1934. She was 48 during filming but was believed to have been fifteen years younger, playing the title character from age 23 to 110. Her makeup was devised by eventual 12-time Oscar nominee and 7-time winner Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London, Ed Wood) at the start of his celebrated career. It took four and a half hours to apply and another two and a half hours to remove daily. The special contact lenses she wore made her legally blind. Her old age voice was the result of many hours of observation of real elderly ladies, at least one of whom claimed Tyson’s fictional character was based on her.

Although Tyson’s performance dominates the film, other actors also stand out, including Derrick Mills, Dan Smith, and Thalmus Rasulala as her adopted son Ned at various ages; Rod Perry as her husband Joe; and Eric Brown and Arnold Wilkerson as Jimmy, the last child and young man she mentors. Three years later, Rasulala would play her husband in Roots.

Tyson’s triumphant walk to, drink from, and walk back from the whites only water fountain outside the courthouse after Jimmy’s murder, was not in Gaines’ book. The iconic scene was the invention of screenplay writer Tracy Keenan Wynn (The Glass House). It is still the most talked about scene in the film.

The Blu-ray includes three informative documentaries about the making of the film, originally made for the film’s 2004 DVD release.

Two years before The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Tyson received her only Oscar nomination for Sounder, in which she gave another powerful performance as a sharecropper’s wife in the deep South during the depression of the 1930s. She and Diana Ross as the legendary Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues became the first and thus far only two black women nominated for a Best Actress Oscar in the same year. Like Tyson, it was Ross’ only nomination.

Lady Sings the Blues has been finally given a Blu-ray release from Paramount.

Pre-release buzz on the film was that Holiday’s story would make a compelling film, but that singer Ross would prove to be an unsuitable choice for the lead. Upon release, the opposite proved to be the case with critics and audiences heralding Ross’s astounding performance while not particularly caring for the film. It nevertheless went on to be nominated for five Oscars including Best Original Screenplay, Art Direction, Costume Design, and Music.

The no-frills Blu-ray does full justice to the film which features standout supporting performances from Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor. It was directed by Sidney J. Furie (The Ipcress File).

Warner Archive has released Blu-ray upgrades of three more musicals, 1949’s My Dream Is Yours and 1951’s On Moonlight Bay and Show Boat. The first two are Doris Day vehicles.

On the theory that what worked once will work twice, Doris Day’s first film, 1948’s Romance on the High Seas, was such a success that Warner Bros. quickly put her in a second film with the same director, Michael Curtiz (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca), co-star, Jack Carson (A Star Is Born, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), and featured players, S.Z. Sakall (In the Good Old Summertime) and Franklin Pangborn (Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife). Instead of Janis Paige and Don DeFore, they gave us Eve Arden (Mildred Pierce) and Lee Bowman (Tonight and Every Night) and threw in Adolphe Menjou (State of the Union) for good measure. The result was another charmer.

Mirroring Day’s real-life rags-to-riches story, they even gave her a cute kid played by 7-year-old Duncan Richardson in place of her own son, Terry Melcher. The film’s highlight may well be the segment in which Day and Carson are joined by Bugs Bunny in entertaining the kid on Easter morning.

Adapted from Booth Tarkington’s Penrod stories, many of which were filmed successfully in the 1920s and 30s, On Moonlight Bay changes Penrod’s name to Wesley and gives the role to eighth-billed Billy Gray who manages to steal all his scenes as expected as the audacious 12-year-old.

Set in 1917, Day is Gray’s tomboy older sister who falls in love with college student Gordon MacRae to the tune of the popular songs of the day. It all breezes along smoothly under the direction of David Butler (Calamity Jane) with Leon Ames and Rosemary DeCamp as Day and Gray’s parents, Mary Wickes as their cook, and Esther Dale as Ames’ aunt the standouts in the supporting cast. The film was so popular that a sequel entitled By the Light of the Silvery Moon came out two years later with the same director and most of the same cast.

The third screen version of Show Boat, directed by George Sidney (Kiss Me Kate), unlike its 1936 predecessor, deviates substantially from the revered Broadway production. Instead of Magnolia Hawks (Kathryn Grayson) and Gaylord Ravenal (Howard Keel), the star-crossed lovers from the showboat being separated for decades while their daughter grows up and becomes a star in her own right, they are only separated for a few years when he returns to see his daughter for the first time as a still young child.

The other major plot change is the expansion of the part of Julie LaVerne (Ava Gardner) who instead of disappearing after singing “Bill” in the second act, turns up again to offer sage advice to Ravenal and is then given the film’s fadeout as she wistfully watches the showboat heading out on the river once more.

Most of the show’s songs including “Ol’ Man River,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” and “Life Upon the Wicked Stage” are still there and beautifully sung by Grayson, Keel, Marge and Gower Champion, and William Warfield. Only Gardner is dubbed. Joe E. Brown and Agnes Moorehead have non-singing roles as Cap’n Andy and his wife Parthy.

Extras include Gardner’s own renditions of her two songs.

This week’s U.S. Blu-ray releases include Fatale and Scare Me.