Walt Disney Treasures: More Silly Symphonies, Volume Two 1929-1938

This two-disc set will be a revelation for Disney and/or animation buffs and simply a delight for anyone of any age who loves vintage cartoons. While Volume One contains all of Disney's certified “milestones in animation,” Volume Two is a treasure trove of rarely seen gems (more than a dozen of which are making their home video premieres) that are ripe for rediscovery. “Quality” was Walt Disney's watchword, and his innovative series of Silly Symphonies, in which animation was synchronized to popular and classical music themes, were the testing ground for animation techniques and technologies, as well as narrative storytelling that would all culminate in “Disney's folly,” the feature-length Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The black and white cartoons on disc one, including “Hell's Bells,” “Summer,” “The Clock Store,” and “The Spider and the Fly,” have their own primitive charms, while the color cartoons on disc two, including “The Night Before Christmas” and “The Goddess of Spring,” can be breathtakingly beautiful. Both discs feature a “From the Vault” section that isolates cartoons that contain ethnic stereotypes, crude violence, and other untoward pre-PC material. “Broken Toys,” for instance, features a lazy doll in the persona of Stepin Fetchit, the otherwise adorable Oscar-winning “Three Orphan Kitties” includes a Mammy character, and the Oscar-nominated “Mother Goose Goes Hollywood” has a sight gag with a caricature of Katharine Hepburn in blackface. DVD extras include audio commentaries on select cartoons. Recommended. (D. Liebenson)