Overkill

The work examines the evolution of the thriller from the heyday of the Hollywood mogul era in the 1930s when it was primarily bottom-of-the-bill fodder, through its maturity in the World War II years and noir-breeding 1950s, its commercial and critical ascendancy in the 1960s and 1970s, and finally its subsequent box office dominance in the age of the blockbuster.