“Save the Children,” an early ’70s concert film featuring many of that era’s biggest names in Black music, was in need of some saving itself. Although the documentary featured iconic stars like the Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Bill Withers, the movie disappeared completely off the radar after being briefly released to theaters in 1973 by Paramount Pictures, never getting an authorized home-video release, let alone revival screenings. But salvation has come, with Netflix having picked up the doc to make it available to be seen for the first time in a half-century.

The two-hour film documents a concert that was put on in Chicago in 1972 to support Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Operation Push, with an all-star cast of performers that also included the Staple Singers, Roberta Flack, Isaac Hayes, Gladys Knight, the Tempations, Ramsey Lewis, Wilson Pickett, Sammy Davis Jr., Cannonball Adderley and Jerry Butler. Those who...