The history of the thriller

Time Out have teamed up with the publishers of ’The Book With No Name‘ to bring you our guide to the history of the thriller film, ten great thrillers and the best moments from thrillers set in London

'Chinatown', 1974

Only moments ago a balaclava-ed editor from 'Time Out' stormed into my flat, put a gun against my head and issued an ultimatum: either write 750 words on the history of thrillers in film in the next 60 minutes or else I'll pull the trigger.

As beads of nervous sweat drip onto my laptop, I manage a weak smile at the appropriateness of my current situation. For it contains all the essential ingredients of the thriller genre: intrigue (who is this balaclava-ed figure?), suspense (will I complete this to deadline?), with the added potential for derring-do spectacle (will I wrestle the gun from my mystery commissioner?).

Film-makers have been combining these elements for almost as long as cinema itself. With the first audiences quickly tiring of the technical marvels of the new-fangled medium, directors sought more inventive ways to thrill their viewers. Borrowing a trick from the hugely popular serial literature of the time, producers began to churn out weekly installments of long-running franchises, each ending with a cliff hanger that sees the hero in mortal danger. The most famous of these was the 1914 series ‘Perils of Pauline’, notorious (and much parodied) for featuring a villainous cad who bound our heroine to rail tracks as a locomotive approached.

'Bulldog Drummond', 1929

The serial format continued into the sound era, but the talkies also allowed the thriller to develop into along more sophisticated lines. The 1930s was the period of the gentleman detective, where a witty one-liner was more likely to get you out of a sticky moment than a deftly landed punch. Films like ‘The Thin Man’ or ‘Bulldog Drummond’ featured suave, debonair heroes, invariably sporting fine suits and pencil-thin moustaches, who were caught up in exotic mysteries and tended to face down all manner of mortal danger with courtly sangfroid.

The best of these was Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 ‘The 39 Steps’. Based on the novel by John Buchan (who is widely credited for inventing the literary thriller), this starred a dashing Robert Donat as an upper-class colonial type unwittingly targeted by a sinister spy-ring and made to flee to the Highlands. Abounding with double-crosses, set-piece chase sequences, and innuendo-laced dialogue between Donat and his leading lady, the film set the template for exotic action-adventure thrillers, which the Bond movies would emulate so spectacularly.

'The Bourne Supremacy', 2004

Unfurling at a breakneck pace and never giving you time to reflect on its many unlikely developments, the film also enshrines one of the principles of good thrillers: an exciting, fast-moving plot is usually more important than matters of plausibility or psychological depth. Look at Paul Greengrass’ 2004 ‘The Bourne Supremacy’, a fine example of the modern Hollywood thriller. Matt Damon’s character remains an cipher throughout; but the emphasis is on the superbly executed action scenes, the car chases, the acrobatic fight sequences and the set-piece pursuits in foreign locations. If it’s a rounded character study you want, then look elsewhere. (Which is why the best thriller filmmakers tend to be master storytellers who eschew showy displays of acting: Hitchcock, John Frankenheimer and Michael Mann being prominent examples).

Not that the thriller must necessarily depend for its excitement on extravagant action scenes. In the late 1940s, the genre toughened up and dressed down, with a string of gloriously bleak urban crime stories that French critics would later label film noirs. In movies like ‘The Big Sleep’, ‘Out of the Past’ and ‘Double Indemnity', fedora-wearing, trench-coated figures would stalk city streets at night, solving mysteries that were as impenetrable as their shadowy surroundings. The plots were dense and convoluted, and the mood was cynical and hard-bitten, perfectly attuned to the weary post-war mood.

'The French Connection', 1971

The film noir sensibility resurfaces intermittently, most notably in ‘70s gritty crime thrillers like ‘The French Connection’, ‘Chinatown’ and ‘The Long Goodbye’, and survives in the work of independent-minded directors like the Coen brothers (whose latest movie ‘No Country for Old Men’ is that rare hybrid: a thriller Western).

But it’s in its glossy, high-concept form that the thriller dominates today. The genre today is the vehicle for filmmakers’ fascination with explosive action sequences, cool new technology and dazzlingly twisty plotting (especially after the popularity of bewilderingly layered espionage TV shows like '24'). The epitome of these tendencies is probably the latest ‘Mission Impossible’ installment and the fact that this bloated, insanely expensive Tom Cruise movie didn’t live up to expectations may suggest the thriller must get back to basics if it’s to prosper.

So perhaps film-makers should listen to Jean Luc Godard, who once said that all you needed to make a film was a girl and a gun. I’m sure he was thinking of a thriller.

Talking of which, note to Editor: can you put the pistol away now?

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