ABSTRACT
Within the context of ‘American tastes and morals’, the principal object of concern during the early 1910s was what the trade press labeled thriller melodramas or sensational melodramas. In a survey of film releases during the month of July 1910, for instance, the Mirror classified 52 out of a total of 241 titles as ‘thriller
melodramas’, with Cowboy and Indian subjects making up nearly half of them.
