STUDIES AND RESEARCH

Poetics of American Advenutre Film of the 1930s

It is extremely difficult to provide a clear definition of the adventure film. However, there are two terms for this genre that are applied to Hollywood productions of the 1930s: costume-adventure film and swashbuckler. The most successful was probably The Adventures of Robin Hood made in 1938. Having rebellion or revolt as the main theme, this film, as many others of the same genre, expressed belief in some old and just order that was broken, but is then restored in the end.

In the realisation of this thematic formula the film used numerous dynamic action scenes which function also as an expression of the desire for adventure. The emphasis on this kind of scenes also gives the main theme some new meanings. The Adventures... and costume-adventure film as a whole can easily fall within the category of the literary genre of romance as defined by N. Frye.

Bruno Kragić