WARNER BROS CLASSICS OF THE 30S AND 40S

Some studios could be said to have had auteurist tendencies. Warner bros’ biggest stars were Cagney, Bogey and Bette Davis; they are associated in the 30s with gritty crime films and firmly rooted (even in their musicals, unlike RKO’s Astaire-Rogers confections) with the people in the depression. It seems they gradually evolved towards rather grander/more glamorous crime films and melodramas.

For a fuller history of the studio, see Ehsan Khoshbakht’s list Warner Bros.story