VIDEO : CROMWELL HIGH ON `LITTLE TREE' DAILY NEWS WIRE SERVICES.

Give James Cromwell a cause he can believe in, and the man will crusade for it.

High on his worthy list is ``The Education of Little Tree,'' a 1997 theatrical release that received an unwelcome mat from its studio and played only a few theaters before being handed off to home video.

As the tall, slender actor best-known for playing the surrogate daddy of a talkative pig in ``Babe'' sees it, ``Tree'' deserved better. And that's why the 58-year-old actor made himself available for interviews to push a film, now on video, that he feels passionately about.

Based on the popular novel by Forrest Carter, ``Little Tree'' is an inspirational coming-of-age story about an 8-year-old boy who goes to live with his grandparents in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains in the 1930s.

``Little Tree'' was one of Cromwell's best film experiences, as well as one of his most enlightening. After the film, Cromwell felt so passionately about issues pertaining to American Indians that he joined the Walking Shield, an organization that is trying to create a fine arts college on the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation in South Dakota.

Although Paramount's lackluster publicity for the film was a blow, Cromwell knows the reasons why ``Tree'' slipped through the studio cracks. He pins the blame on the studio's much-touted ``FairyTale: A True Story'' and that little thing called ``Titanic.'' ``They were preoccupied,'' Cromwell says of the studio honchos. ``And they put a lot of effort into `FairyTale,' and that went down the tubes.''

Not quite sure of what to do with ``Little Tree,'' Paramount wound up releasing it in one theater in Westwood to qualify for Oscar consideration. It was hardly an auspicious showing, ``with no publicity, no marquees, no posters,'' Cromwell says. ``In fact, nobody was at the box office for the opening, so the first show had to be canceled.'' This vote of no confidence was further cemented by ``Little Tree'' failing to open in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco - key locations. From that point, one of the year's best family films was doomed.

Cromwell knows well the importance of not underestimating smaller films. Take ``Babe.'' Going into the film, Cromwell didn't expect much. He spent five months away from his family, had a wonderful time filming but had to wait a year for its release. He was worried. ``At that point, it got so bad I thought, `Geez, I've gotta get another job.' '' And like ``Little Tree,'' ``Babe'' was headed for a similar fate with wavering support from Universal, he says. Positive word-of-mouth and ecstatic reviews changed that.

DVD releases

When it comes to laser discs, no company comes close to the Criterion Collection. After all, this is the company that pioneered the concept of remastering the picture and sound of critically acclaimed films for laser disc and then adding features, such as audio commentary, interviews, etc. and packaging them as special editions.

While it's true that the laser-disc format didn't take off and remained a niche market, it did became the format of choice for thousands of serious movie fans. And the Criterion Collection became a major force in the laser-disc market.

But now there's a new home-video format, DVD, which features sound that is equal to the laser disc's and a picture that is slightly better in quality. And now the Criterion Collection has jumped into the DVD market by turning the films in its special-edition library into DVDs.

To see how well the company is doing check out two early Criterion DVDs - a classic French film by Francois Truffaut from the '50s and an action film from Hong Kong director John Woo - to see how they compared to their laser-disc counterparts from Criterion: ``The 400 Blows'' (Criterion Collection, 1959; not rated; one hour, 34 minutes; original 2.35:1 wide-screen aspect ratio, Dolby Digital monaural sound; $39.95) and ``The Killer'' (Criterion Collection, 1989; not rated, extremely violent; one hour, 50 minutes plus supplemental material; Dolby Digital monaural sound; $39.95).

The results are most impressive. There's almost nothing on the DVDs that isn't on their much more expensive laser-disc counterparts, including audio commentary. But there is a difference in the picture and sound quality. The sound on both films is presented in their original monaural, but on the DVDs the Dolby Digital process makes that mono sound as crisp and clean as you could want.

The picture quality on ``The 400 Blows'' was never what you could describe as pristine. The film, the fictionalized story of Truffaut's childhood, was made on the cheap and shot in black and white. Still, the picture on the DVD is much sharper and cleaner than on the laser disc. And on ``The Killer,'' which was shot in color, the picture quality is stunning.

What makes these two Criterion Collection DVDs particularly appealing is their price. Yes, $39.95 is a bit high for a DVD, but it is $10 less than the CLV laser-disc versions of the films. And if you wanted Criterion's picture-perfect CAV laser-disc version of ``The Killer,'' you'd have to pay $124.95 for it.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) John Woo

``The Killer''

(2) James Cromwell

Passionate about tale