History of the Action Genre

By Farida Islam

Early Action Films

• 1920’s-1930’s Action films were often Adventure or Western films e.g. The Mask of Zorro, The Last of the Mohicans.

• 1940’s-1950’s saw Action in the form of War and Cowboy films e.g. Sahara. Alfred Hitchcock was the first to introduce the spy-adventure genre, using aspects from the genre action e.g. set pieces. For example the famous crop-duster scene in North by Northwest. That film, along with a war-adventure called The Guns of Navarone directly inspired producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to invest in their own spy-adventure based on the novels of Ian Fleming.

1970’s- Bond saw competition as grittydetective stories and urban crime dramas beganto fuse themselves with the new "action" style,leading to a string of maverick police officerfilms, such as those defined by The FrenchConnection and Dirty Harry. Asian Martial artthemed action movies then broke into thewestern cinema e.g. Bruce Lee’s Enter theDragon.

1980’s- Also known as the ‘Action Era’ made popular by actorssuch as:• Sylvester Stallone• Arnold Shwarzenegger• Bruce Willis • Chuck Norris

Genre hybrids were becoming the norm; • War-action hybrids e.g. First Blood and Missing in Action• Science fiction action e.g. The Terminator, and RoboCop• Horror-action e.g. Aliens and Predator• Even the occasional musical-action-comedy hybrid e.g. The

Blues Brothers

1990’s- This was the era of sequels as thesuccess of many successful film sequels provedthat one successful film could lead to a wholefranchise. Computer Gaming Imagery (CGI)allowed many film makers to take action films toa new level with breath taking experiences.

2000 onwards- With technology being more advancedthan it has ever been, the quality of films has neverbeen better. For example the use of CGI and 3Dgraphics has taken the film world by storm, withsurreal graphics and crystal clear viewing. Also filmbudgeting