Smart as a Fox is a 1946 short film (9 1/2 minutes).
It's a tale of a baby fox in the wilderness. The fox is born in the springtime, when all the animals of the forest get together. The fox, the most inquisitive cub in its den, keeps venturing out to explore, at one point narrowly escaping a raven. Later, after fleeing from a hungry dog, the fox cub gets lost.
This film was taken in its entirety from a Russian documentary feature film.
Tropes:
- Blade-of-Grass Cut: Close-ups of sights like a cricket on a leaf and a butterfly on a flower.
- Creepy Crows: A raven looms over the inquisitive fox cub, and finally attacks. The cub gets away but is left with a gash on its head.
- Gray Rain of Depression: The scene where a dog kills and eats the mother fox is immediately followed by the baby fox looking out of its den, waiting for mom, as the rain pours in sheets.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The mother distracts the dog from her cubs. She winds up getting eaten herself instead.
- Narrator: An American narrator tells the story of the life of a baby fox, over Russian film footage.
- Nature Documentary: A documentary short of the life of a vulnerable fox cub.
- Ominous Owl: Near the end of the film an owl is seen watching the fox, and then attacking, like the raven did when the fox was smaller. The fox escapes again.
- Stock Animal Diet: Presumably to pad out the run time, we briefly leave the fox to see footage of some bears raiding a beehive in a tree.
- Stock Footage: The entire movie is culled from a Soviet documentary feature, Zakon velikoy lyubvi.
