History of Thriller

THRILLERS:

These are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension. Thriller and suspense films are virtually synonymous and interchangeable categorizations, with similar characteristics and features.
If the genre is to be defined strictly, a genuine thriller is a film that restlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy.
 

One of the earliest 'thrillers' was Harold Lloyd's comic Safety Last (1923), with the all-American boy performing a daredevil stunt on the side of a skyscraper. The haunting and chilling German film M (1931) directed by the great Fritz Lang, starred Peter Lorre (in his first film role) as a criminal deviant - a child killer. The film's story was based on the life of serial killer Peter Kurten (known as the 'Vampire of Dusseldorf'). Edward Sutherland's crime/horror thriller Murders in the Zoo (1933) from Paramount starred Lionel Atwill as a murderous and jealous zoologist. And various horror films of the period, The Cat and the Canary (1927), director Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with Fredric March, and The Bat Whispers (1930), provided some thrills.
Director George Cukor's classic psychological thriller Gaslight (1944) (first made in Britain in 1939 with Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynward) featured a scheming husband (Charles Boyer) plotting to make his innocent young wife (Ingrid Bergman) go insane, in order to acquire her inheritance. The film noir Laura (1944) told about a thrilling murder investigation (for a beautiful missing advertising executive named Laura) conducted by a police detective (Dana Andrews), with suspects including an acid-tongued columnist (Clifton Webb) and a gigolo fiancé (Vincent Price). And the eerie The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), from Oscar Wilde's masterful tale, refashioned the Faustian story of a man (Hurd Hatfield) who made a deal with Mephistopheles (George Sanders) to forever remain young.

 

No list of suspense or thriller films can be complete without mention of English film-maker/director Alfred Hitchcock. He helped to shape the modern-day thriller genre, beginning with his early silent film The Lodger (1927), a suspenseful Jack-the-Ripper story, followed by his next thriller Blackmail (1929), his first sound film (but also released in a silent version). Hitchcock would make a signature cameo appearance in his feature films, beginning with his third film The Lodger (1927), although his record was spotty at first. After 1940, he appeared in every one, except for The Wrong Man (1956). Although nominated five times as Best Director (from 1940-1960), Hitchcock never won an Academy Award.

Alfred Hitchcock is considered the acknowledged auteur master of the thriller or suspense genre, manipulating his audience's fears and desires, and taking viewers into a state of association with the representation of reality facing the character. He would often interweave a taboo or sexually-related theme into his films, such as the repressed memories of Marnie (Tippi Hedren) in Marnie (1964), the latent homosexuality in Strangers on a Train (1951), voyeurism in Rear Window (1954), obsession in Vertigo (1958), or the twisted Oedipus complex in Psycho (1960).

There were many other great thrillers out there; the acclaimed police thriller The French Connection (1971) was based on the true story of two New York City narcotics officers (Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle, and Roy Scheider as Buddy) who pursue the largest heroin smuggling group in history. The film that brought Steven Spielberg to prominence was his terrifying summer blockbuster hit Jaws (1975), a frighteningly tense and shocking thriller inspired by real life East Coast shark attacks in 1916. John Boorman's Deliverance (1972) followed the perilous fate of four Southern businessmen during a weekend's shoot-the-rapids trip. Two nail-biting films, both adult shockers, Play Misty for Me (1971) and Fatal Attraction (1987), involved the nightmarish, dangerous consequences of a philandering one-night stand - one with a psychotic girlfriend, the other a spurned lover. In Francis Ford Coppola's tense character study/thriller The Conversation (1974), a bugging-device expert (Gene Hackman) systematically uncovered a covert murder while he himself was being spied upon. A battered wife who left her sadistic husband to find a better life was vengefully pursued in Sleeping with the Enemy (1991).

Jonathan Demme's highly-acclaimed Best Picture-winning horror/thriller Silence of the Lambs (1991) pitted young FBI agent/trainee Jodie Foster in psychological warfare against a cannibalistic psychiatrist named Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), while tracking down transgender serial killer Buffalo Bill. And Jan De Bont's combination action/thriller Speed (1994) perfectly captured the heart-stopping suspense aboard a Los Angeles city bus threatened by a mad bomber (Dennis Hopper). In Michael Mann's and DreamWorks' gritty Collateral (2004), Tom Cruise plays a taxi-riding hit man and Jamie Foxx as the cabbie.



Recently, various thrillers have used twisting plots and surprise endings to capture audiences, notably:

Bryan Singer's clever and hip The Usual Suspects (1995), with Kevin Spacey as a club-footed con man and a central mystery surrounding the character of Hungarian mobster Keyser Soze.
director David Fincher's compelling crime thriller Se7en (1995), about the search for a serial killer who re-enacts the seven deadly sins.
M. Night Shyamalan's effective The Sixth Sense (1999), about a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who sees "dead people" - this was Shyamalan's signature film with clever clues sprinkled throughout the film; also Shyamalan's spooky Signs (2002), about a disillusioned minister (Mel Gibson) who encounters gigantic, eerie crop circles on his farm.
writer/director Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000), a tale told backwards, with Guy Pearce as a tattooed man without short-term memory, who hunts down the alleged rapist-killer of his wife