Potboilers, programmers, and procedurals

2005.05.17 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Analysis | by Andrew Cole

A while ago, I addressed the subjects of pulp, exploitation, and film noir. Having been indulging in a 50-movie pack of old mysteries, it occurs to me to expand my scope.

Genre films, like genre fiction in the publishing world, include all those types that have come to have their own category in the video store: westerns, science fiction, gangster, detective stories, romantic comedies, sports stories, etc. These are often snubbed by high-brow critics who consider genre films to be low-brow. In a way they're right.

After all, the reason a type of story gets its own genre is because it is so popular that many writers emulate it. And anything that's popular is likely to be pretty low-brow. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that there aren't terrific stories to be told... or, rather, crummy stories told well.

Genre films can cover the gamut of human experience (and fantasy), but when they get mechanical and predictable, we give special names to them. They aren't names you hear much anymore, but that doesn't mean they don't apply any more.

Potboiler

The potboiler is a story or film produced quickly and shoddily to keep the writer's or studio's proverbial stewpot boiling. It usually trundles along clumsily, using all the various tricks and gimmicks to keep things moving. Potboilers are usually adventures, in which the hero must rescue the girl and chase and fight the villain. He gets into plenty of scrapes along the way, of course, and cheats death frequently and with surprising nonchalance.

These tend to be "popcorn movies" with little character development and a lot of stunt work. Who cares what the hero's past is? He has to save the girl! He has to find the treasure! Isn't that enough?

We don't call movies "potboilers" anymore, but a lot of Jerry Bruckheimer's projects are pretty much indistinguishable from old-time potboilers except in the obscene amounts of his financers' money he burns to keep the pot boiling, as it were.

Programmer

A programmer is usually a part of a series that follows the same basic tried-and-true formula and can be adventures, sports stories, westerns, slasher flicks, whatever. Traditionally, this is a B-movie that appears on the bottom end of a double-feature (with an A-movie on top).

The Bulldog Drummond movies are often referred to as classic "programmers," following as they do the formula:

The bored Drummond stumbles into a dangerous adventure and pursues it in spite of Phyllis, dragging friend Algy along despite his own distractions; sorts out the difficulty with a bit of fisticuffs and gunplay; hands over the heavy to the inspector; and embraces dear Phyllis.

Altho certainly not B-movies, the James Bond films even fit this description, with an even stronger formula:

Bond is assigned by M to a new target—an international master crime lord who probably wants to take over the world—meets the heavy and a pretty girl under a cover identity; investigates enough to uncover some shady dealings, kill a couple of henchmen, and bed the aforementioned pretty girl; meets Q to get some new gadgets; pursues the heavy to his fantastical lair; kills the villain's main henchman; rescues the same or different pretty girl; kills the villain himself; and escapes to temporary romance with the pretty girl while the villain's lair explodes.

But the term "programmer" is usually used to refer to films featuring adventurers and detectives like Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Moto, as well as Andy Hardy and other recurring characters that get into the same kind of scrapes again and again.

Despite filmgoers' complaints about sequels, Hollywood is pretty careful about staying away from this sort of thing nowadays. Sequels try to explore new territory and exploit different aspects of the characters, even involving different characters (since actors are even more wary of them than the studios are).

Notice how the makers of the sequels to Jurassic Park, Jaws, Alien, and The Terminator all tried to broaden the scope of their stories and characters and still maintain the elements the audience most loved. Most of these failed, of course... but they made money.

Procedural

The procedural is pretty much restricted to the detective mystery genre. In it, we see the inner workings of a detective going about solving a crime. A big part of the interest is seeing the detective deal with rules of evidence, rules of interrogation, and so on. It's really more about the cops than it is about the crime.

A formula police procedural includes:

• the veteran cop (who has relationship problems and lives on cheeseburgers and chili dogs)
• the older partner (who is about to retire but who gets killed first)
• the rookie partner (who is living beyond his means and scores all the chicks)
• the long-suffering wife or girlfriend
• the hot-tempered police lieutenant/captain/chief
• the legend of the dead cop father (who was accused of being corrupt but who was really sold out by his crooked partner)
• the bad cop on the take
• pole-dancing strippers and hookers in handcuffs in the precinct house

Procedurals don't have to be about police per se, but they pretty much have to stick with the legal system, since that's the thing we're all familiar with that is full of procedures to follow and to break.

The lawyer who is driven to defend his innocent (and often beautiful and vulnerable) client can be a procedural, as can be the medical examiner who is driven to prove the real cause of death and bring the guilty party to justice despite apathetic or incompetent cops. But these are largely restricted to television, for some reason.

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