6 Classic Animal Movies

By RICHARD CORLISS

KING KONG, SON OF KONG AND MIGHTY JOE YOUNG MERIAN C. COOPER AND ERNEST B. SCHOEDSACK "Why, the whole world'll pay to see this!" exclaims the man who brings Kong from Skull Island to Manhattan. The world got its money's worth in 1933, as you will with this set that collects the three Cooper-Schoedsack simian sensations (Kong and its less fearsome offspring), all animated by stop-motion ace Willis O'Brien. Among the invaluable extras: a splendid documentary on Cooper by Kevin Brownlow and Christopher Bird, and a making-of feature on the original Kong--still the eighth wonder of the movie world.

THE WIZARD OF OZ VICTOR FLEMING Six years after the big ape fell from the Empire State Building, flying monkeys attacked Dorothy Gale and her friends in Oz. (Need more animals? The Cowardly Lion. And Toto too.) The film, which flopped in its original release but went on to entertain families happily ever after, looks Technicolor terrific on this three-disc set, which includes five promo documentaries, 10 period portraits of the stars and a rare audio clip of Judy Garland sobbing her way through a reprise of Over the Rainbow--a surprise minute or so of heartrending musical melodrama.

MARCH OF THE PENGUINS LUC JACQUET Last year's top movie love story? Not Brangelina, nor Naomi Watts and her cybergorilla, but this true fable of domestic devotion among Antarctica's emperor penguins. For months, while the mother forages for food, the father struggles to keep the egg safe in a -80DEGF chill. This French documentary, for which its heroic makers deserve the Legion d'Honneur and cups of steaming cocoa, became a $77 million sleeper hit in North America. Now that it's winter, watch the film again on DVD, and be warmed.

GRIZZLY MAN WERNER HERZOG For a darker parable of nature, attend the poignant, unsettling tale of Timothy Treadwell, who spent 13 summers among the wild bears of southern Alaska, until he and his girlfriend were mauled to pieces. With the aid of more than 90 hours of Treadwell's video footage, plus interviews with those who knew him, Herzog gets into the mind of a man who thought his nearness to the bears was a triumph of cross-species symbiosis, when in fact he was tempting the fate he eventually, tragically achieved.

CREATURE COMFORTS: SEASON ONE RICHARD GOLESZOWSKI Talking dogs and hamsters: big deal, eh? Yes, and a flat-out funny one in these 9-min. stop-motion gems, which put musings on various subjects by various Brits into the quizzical mouths of animated animals. An extension of Nick Park's Oscar-winning short (included on the DVD), this BBC series offers the sagest social critique this side of South Park.

WALLACE & GROMIT IN THREE AMAZING ADVENTURES NICK PARK The bard of Aardman Studios, Park is the gent who dreamed up Creature Comforts and the feature hit Chicken Run. But Park's signal contribution to stop-motion animation, as well as to an appreciation of the placid lunacies of the English middle class, is this trifecta of shorts about Wallace the inventor and his infinitely superior dog Gromit. The second film, The Wrong Trousers, is one of the great screen comedies and a tribute to man's dependence on animals.