Since the early days of film, critics and theorists have debated the value of formula, cliché, conventional imagery, and recurring narrative patterns of reduced complexity. The high noon showdown or last-minute rescue, the lonely woman standing in the window or two lovers saying goodbye in the rain-many films rely on these scenes, and audiences have come to expect them. Outlining a comprehensive theory of film stereotype, a device as functionally important to film narrative as it is problematic, Jörg Schweinitz builds an overlooked critical history from the 1920s to today. Drawing.