The "spoof" … is only one form of American movies' film-consciousness. Somewhere this side of burlesque, connected to it, lies a distinctively American kind of film which also works with conventional film-styles but instead of deflating or inflating them tries to domesticate them. A stock plot and stock characters, even stock editing, are set forth with a wealth of gritty, sometimes squalid detail. At their best, these films set up a resonance between the ideal values of the convention and the homely ordinariness of their settings, properties, and dialogue…. The film convention thus enclosed is not shown up, debunked, burlesqued, or otherwise patronized: it is, if a word must be found, actual-ized—i.e., supplied with actuality….

The comic strain is always important in the genre, and it is always a threat to the director's equilibrium. At best, two attitudes toward the characters are juxtaposed and kept in...