Black Fox: The True Story of Adolf Hitler

Despite its Disneyesque title, The Black Fox is actually a documentary of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Authentic scenes of Adolf Hitler and the war and atrocities that he fomented are framed by a curious literary device. Hitler’s ascension is compared to that of Reynard the Fox, a medieval folk-fable “trickster”. While this device could have been pretentious–or, at the very worst, precious–the film works quite well. The newsreel footage seen in The Black Fox is relatively familiar, but the treatment sheds new light on an old story.