Genres in Classical Hollywood

During the Age of Classical Hollywood, the immensely vertically integrated studio system used many ploys to achieve success. One of the most interesting and important of these was the use of genres within filmmaking. Genres were employed to give audiences specific conventions to expect during the film, therefore telling them their likelihood of enjoying the film. The genres were simplified categories for types of stories that audiences identified with.

This affected the types of films a studio made because they could stick to a systematic formula for each film. Each genre would follow basically the same pattern, but perhaps with slightly different circumstances and actors. However, different actors were not guaranteed. In fact many actors became associated with one specific genre (for example John Wayne and Westerns). Therefore, the genres produced affected the actors who were cast. This formula based type of movie production created a predictable relationship between filmmakers and audiences because audiences knew what to expect and filmmakers could be relatively sure of the audience’s reaction to it. When social or political sentiment tuned against a genre (like it did with the idolizing Gangster Genre), film companies would turn to a different genre, like, in this case, detective films. Genres further influenced film development when it came to hybrid genres. Filmakers could create highly sensational hits by mixing genres and therefore giving movies a sense of novelty. Furthermore, if one genre was popular, you could be sure that the studios would pump out more movies from that genre. Overall, the supply and demand of different genres determined what kinds of movies were made and watched.

One example how the genre system worked can be seen in the evolution from gangster films to detective films to hybrid films. Gangster films were very popular and the audiences had a very high demand for them. However, the effect of idolizing vicious criminals was called to question, so the industry shifted to the detective genre. From there, they shifted to hybrids of detective film and other genres. This entire genre evolution can be seen in conjunction with the star system and Humphrey Bogart’s career. He started out his career in gangster movies and then transitioned to the hard-boiled detective in detective films, and then to a hybrid of detective and romance in the Maltese Falcon. The elements of several genres can be seen in the embedded trailer from The Maltese Falcon.