The document summarizes the history and evolution of the action genre in film from the 1920s to present day. It describes how early action films from the 1920s-1940s were typically westerns and medieval films, before expanding to include war films in the 1940s-1950s. The 1960s saw the rise of James Bond films which defined the spy genre. Martial arts films from other countries became popular in the 1970s alongside films inspired by Bond. The 1980s established modern action film conventions that are still used today involving explosions, chases, and witty protagonists. Recent decades have seen the growth of sequels, superhero films, and remakes of classic action films.

1. History of Action
genre

2. Generic conventions of Action
Films
• There are lots of generic conventions in action films that are
featured throughout the history of the genre. These are things
such as; explosions, a dilemma, guns, heroes, villains, a
damsel in distress, chase scenes, wisecracking protagonists
and a transition from calm to intense with some sort of
generic convention like an explosion or gunshot.

3. 1920s – 1930s
• The first action films started in 1920 and kept to the same
conventions for the next 20 years. In the period between 1920
and 1940, action films were typically cowboy films and
medieval films. This franchise started to change slightly in the
period between 1940 and 1950.

4. 1940s – 1950s
• The action film franchise started to move away from the
medieval and staggered towards war in films such as ‘Days of
Glory’ and ‘The Seventh Survivor’ while still keeping the
western films but now making them a lot more unrealistic.
This is the era when actors like John Wayne and Clint
Eastwood.

5. 1960s
• This period lasted 10 years and the action film franchise was
dominated by the James Bond series which is still around
today. It inspired the franchise for all spy movies made
afterwards such as The ‘Bourne’ series.

6. 1970s
• The next period of the action film franchise lasted 10 years.
This saw the emergence of other action films inspired by the
still dominant ‘Bond’ films. There were also other countries
attempts at action films which were very successful and
unique that included lots of martial arts. Actors like Bruce Lee
and Jackie Chan came into the franchise at this point.

7. 1980s
• The next development of the action film franchise brought a
new set of generic conventions that are very similar and are
still used in action films today. These are conventions such as
explosions, chase scenes and witty protagonists etc. It is this
time period that set the benchmark for action films for the
future.

8. 1990s - Present
• The next time period was from the 90s until present day. The
action film franchise turned into a series of sequels for
successful action movies, superhero movies, hybrid genres
such as action; adventure, romance, comedy, etc. and remakes
of classic successful action films from different time periods.