Establishing the background to the crime genre could be considered as essential in understanding the foundations of such a genre and applying that knowledge to the project.
From my reseach into this genre I have found that films with a crime genre were developed during the early years of the silent era from the following webste: http://www.filmsite.org/crimefilms.html. It also describes of how the first significant film with a crime genre was The Musketeers of Pg Valley produced by D. W. Griffith based on a story of organised crime. Josef von Sternberg's Underworld (1927) with George Bancroft and Clive Brook, often considered as the first modern crime film, had many standard conventions and was shot from the gangster's point of view.
During the sound era and the 1930s, crime films became a more entertaining and popular way to attract an audience to the theatres. The real-life events of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, the existence of real-life gangsters (e.g., Al Capone), the rise of contemporary organized crime and escalation of urban violence helped to encourage the attraction towards this genre as well.
The talkies era accounted for the real rise of crime films, because this genre couldn't come to life without sound (machine gun fire, screeching brakes, screams, chases through city streets and squealing car tires). The perfection of sound technology and mobile cameras also aided their progression. The first "all-talking" film was The Lights of New York (1928) which enhanced the urban crime dramas of the time with crackling dialogue and exciting sound effects of squealing getaway car tires and gunshots.
Each film which glorified the criminal act of a main character ultimately met their doom in the final scenes of these films, due to censors' demands that these characters receive moral retribution for their crimes.
Film noir’s were introduced in the early 1940s based on the text from the following website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir and consisted of a crime drama, which commonly emphasize the cynical attitudes and sexual motivations of such criminal characters.
The more modern crime films have maintained the basic principles of previous films as they usually highlight the life of a criminal figure or a victim(s) of a criminal act. It commonly glorifies the rise and fall of a particular criminal(s), gang, bank robber, murderer or lawbreakers in personal power struggles or conflict with law and order figures, an underling or competitive colleague, or a rival gang. Headline-grabbing situations, real-life gangsters, or crime reports have often been used in crime films. Crime films are usually set in large, crowded cities, to represent the world of a criminal: dark nightclubs or streets with lurid neon signs, fast cars, and piles of cash, sleazy bars, contraband, seedy living quarters or rooming houses. Exotic locales for crimes often add an element of adventure and wealth.
According to the following website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_film the crime genre has developed numerous subgenres over the years consisting of:
Crime comedies - a hybrid of crime and comedy films. Mafia comedies look at organized crime from a comical standpoint. Humor often comes from the incompetence of the criminals or dark comedy. Examples include Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, In Bruges, Fargo and Mafia!
Crime horrors – a horror film in which crime plays a major part. Examples include From Hell and the Hannibal Lecter film series (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Hannibal Rising).
Crime thrillers – a thriller film in which crime plays a large part. Examples include Seven, Witness, Memories of Murder and Running Scared.
Detective films – a film which depicts a professional private detective hired to solve a crime, usually a murder or missing persons case, in such films as The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Harper (1966), The Long Goodbye (1973), Chinatown (1974), Twilight (1998).
Heist films – a film which deals with a group of criminals attempting to perform a theft or robbery, as well as the possible consequences that follow. Heist films that are lighter in tone are called "Caper films". Examples include The Killing, Oceans 11, Dog Day Afternoon, The Sting and Reservoir Dogs.
Legal dramas – a film which is not usually concerned with the actual crime, but more of the trial in the aftermath. Examples include Awaara, 12 Angry Men and A Time To Kill.
Mob films – a film which focuses on characters who are involved seriously with the Mafia. Notable mob films include: Goodfellas, The Godfather, Once Upon a Time in America, Road to Perdition, Bugsy, Angels with Dirty Faces, Little Caesar, Donnie Brasco, The Untouchables, The Public Enemy, Casino, Scarface, and The Departed.
Prison films – a film which commonly follows the life of the protagonists in prison. Examples include The Shawshank Redemption and Escape from Alcatraz.
True crime – a film which is based on a real event, although details of the event may be altered for the purposes of storytelling. Examples include Bonnie & Clyde, Dog Day Afternoon, Goodfellas, Public Enemies.
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