In the first and second decades of the twentieth century, the cinema (especially the American cinema) developed the main genres of content, the principle of intelligible organisation of sound and images, the production organisation and the marketing and distribution skills that would later be embraced by television and radio (Bordwell, Thompson & Steiger 1985). .
During the 1920's a factory-like system (a production or assembly line of sorts) of developing films emerged. One film sale ensured continued production, more staff were hired to increase production capacities of studios. Production became fragmented and specialization or division of labour areas, occurred. Ensuing vertical integration of the industry emerged and films that were successful (in terms of market consumption) were replicated. Genre sets up modes of understanding through repetition - this was achieved through the replication of successful works. It was this mass replication that led to a body of work of similar topic, style and/or narrative processes, and thus were termed, genre films. It is important to note that in addition to assisting the classification of film, genre also expresses the industrialized mode of production of film.
'All cultural and artistic production in Western societies is now, and has been for some time, subject to capitalist conditions of production, distribution and exchange, hence to commodification' (Nowell-Smith in Neale Questions of Genre 2000). This brings to light issues surrounding the notion of genre film as being film devoid of art. 'Genre films offend our most common definition of artistic excellence: the uniqueness of the art object whose value can be defined by its desire to be uncaused and unfamiliar, as much as possible unindebted to any tradition, popular or otherwise. The modern prejudice against genre in art can be traced to the aesthetic theories of the Romantic period' (Braudy Genre: the Conventions of Connections 1979) a period where art was characterised by uniqueness and individuality.
