The Romance Tropes We Stole From Old Hollywood

Romance is a cinematic genre, and romance authors are magpies... so it's no wonder, then, that several old Hollywood romance tropes keep finding their way onto our pages!

This blog focuses largely on romances with elements of screwball comedy: black-and-white rom-coms that satirise elements of traditional love stories and power structures. The genre flourished after the Hays Code came into force in 1934. Writers began to employ increasingly imaginative Trojan-horse-style methods to sneak spicier elements into their stories.

Screwball love stories might happen between people from very different social classes, subvert traditional gender dynamics, or include farcical, silly situations and razor-sharp dialogue. Like its baseball-pitch namesake, the genre promises narrative arcs that are chaotic, silly, unpredictable and FABULOUS!

The Runaway Royal

classic Inspo: Roman Holiday, 1953

In Roman Holiday, a jaded journalist is melted by a runaway princess. After a very long day, Crown Princess Ann has had more than enough of the duties that come with her role. Her doctor prescribes a heady sedative and instructs her to "do exactly as [she] pleases for a while". She slips out of the palace while sedated. An American newsman finds her asleep in the street and reluctantly puts her up in his flat for the night. The next morning, he recognises her as the mysteriously missing princess he was meant to be interviewing. He makes an arrangement with his publisher and photographer friend that he will take 'Anya' around the sights of Rome and later sell their story to the press. Over the course of the day, Ann leaves behind the rigid structure of her social role, cuts her hair and flirts with the idea of disappearing from her duties.

A runaway royal is a great exploration of themes of autonomy and freedom in comparison to duty. It's also a brilliant recipe for romance that can happen when social and class barriers are broken down and the normal power structures are overturned. This rich seam has inspired lots of works of literature, for example, The Runaway Princess by @littlelo on wattpad.

The Meet-Cute 

classic Inspo: Bringing Up Baby, 1953

Allegedly coined by Ernst Lubitsch, a German director, the meet-cute came to define screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s. Basically, our lovers can’t meet somewhere ordinary; it needs to be a little off the wall, a little bit whimsical, a little bit cutesy.

A particularly genre-defining example is Bringing Up Baby. A hapless palaeontologist plans to play a game of golf in order to woo funders and save his project, only to be met head on by a chaotic heiress (she steals his golf ball, wrecks his car and forces him to bring up her pet leopard; the rest is history)

Nowadays meet-cutes are all the rage in romance more generally, including my own novels! Meet cutes are brilliant plot devices; they provide a hook for the reader but also set up themes and tensions that will eddie the course of true love. And in the world where many a real-life romance begins online, meetcutes feel like escaping into a sweeter dimension and like a figment of a simpler time. It’s no wonder that it's become something of a cultural obsession, with outlets like meetcutesnyc interviewing couples about their origin stories (the cuter the better!) 

Here's a meet-cute from my debut novel, The Refusal. Janus Phillips (Tech CEO and womaniser) meets Jo Williams, a tech security expert who doesn’t suffer fools gladly, in the elevator on the way to a meeting to discuss a serious data breach at Janus’s company... 

“Easy now.” The slightly condescending tilt to his tone lights a fire in me. He’s patronizing me? He’s right on my heels as I move inside and press the button for my floor. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’ve seen you around before—do you work in marketing?” he says. 

His voice is all friendly, warm and deep. And, as I turn to face him, the monkey on my shoulder decides to wake up and have some fun. No one patronizes me and gets away with it. This desire to poke the bear drove my dad round the bend: he was forever being called into school to “talk about his daughter.” 

“Oh no.” I purse my lips. “I’m here for a meeting.” He nods at me in that way people do when they’re waiting for you to say more. I’ll bet he expects me to know who he is. I’ll bet women normally fawn all over him. Smiling, I turn away, desperately hoping the floor will come before I’m obliged to tell him anything else. A ticking silence sits over us, and he clears his throat. 

“What company are you from?” Bingo. Curiosity killed the cat, Mr. Phillips. Turning right around to grin at him, I have to stop myself from doing a little victory dance at the somewhat bemused expression on his face. 

“Oh, I’m a freelance contractor.” I’m not directly lying here, right? “What are you here for?” My smile is like saccharin. 

Janus’s eyes widen slightly, and he runs a distracted hand through his unruly brown mop, making it stick up at crazy angles. I stare at it in fascination. Is there gel in it? His hand drifts down his chest in the ensuing silence, and I track his long slim fingers, the square-trimmed nails. 

“Oh, yeah, um, I work here?” Oh, very interesting. Not the response I’d expect from someone whose ego has to be as big as a planet. I thought he’d say he was Janus Phillips and give me a knowing smirk. Where’s all the arrogance? 

“Oh, nice.” I bob my head like a nodding dog. “It must be terrific to have a job here.” I lean forward and lower my voice. “I’ve heard that Janus Phillips is so cool to work for. A friend of mine knows him and told me he was a peach.” I tilt my head, trying not to laugh. What is coming out of my mouth? Janus’s jaw drops and redness starts at the bottom of his neck; it makes me want to turn the screw a little more. “Have you met him?” I breathe. 

He examines the floor for a while, and when his gaze comes back to mine, I’m taken aback by the crinkles around the corners of his eyes, the conspiratorial gleam. 

“I’ve had a few meetings with him,” he murmurs, and his eyes sweep over my hair and cheeks, coming to rest on my lips. 

Buy The Refusal here!

Transformations

classic Inspo: Sabrina, 1953

When I think of transformations in romance books, I'm not thinking of a makeover scene. This trope, for me, is more about how the character feels in their own skin. It's about someone coming out of your shell and drawing other people in.

One example from back in the day is Sabrina. Audrey Hepburn's character is the daughter of a chauffeur for the Larrabee family. She lives with them on their massive Long Island estate and pines after the debonair younger brother, David, who doesn't see her as a romantic pursuit. Devastated, Sabrina leaves Long Island for Parisian culinary school, where she transforms herself into an IT girl. Upon her return, her sophistication and newfound confidence catch the eye of not one but TWO brothers, threatening David's wedding and a lucrative merger for the family.

All of this is pretty familiar to lovers of contemporary romance; it has seen updates everywhere from The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han to The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow. There's something empowering about romantic interest happening naturally because our herione has come into herself.

Grumpy/sunshine

classic Inspo: Mr Deeds Goes to Town, 1936

We've all seen in before: an uptight guy is literally melted by the sunny heroine. But what happens when the roles are reversed?

In Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Longfellow Deeds is a blue-collar working-class man who inherits an infeasibly large sum of money from his uncle. When his uncle’s scheming attorney brings him to NYC, he wants the press to stay away. What he hasn't reckoned with is star reporter Babe Bennett. She gets round the press ban by going undercover as a damsel in distress, worming her way into Deed’s affections in order to dish the dirt about the country bumpkin turned millionaire. 

Deeds, it turns out, is more than meets the eye. His genuinely sunny nature and finely tuned instincts repel attempts to get at his fortune and eventually win over Babe.

Grumpy/sunshine often goes hand in hand with enemies-to-lovers or fake dating set-ups – for example, in The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, where two biologists (sunny Olive and not-so-sunny Adam) begin a fake relationship after an impulsive kiss – which brings us to our final trope!

Enemies-to-lovers/fake dating

classic Inspo: It Happened One Night, 1934

This has to be one of my favorite tropes: there's something about razor-sharp barbs giving way to brilliant sexual tension that is just SO compelling! And fake dating is the perfect plot device in which to counterpose hate and love (not always as opposite as we'd like to think they are).

One of the best vintage examples of enemies to lovers is in It Happened One Night. Runaway Wall Street heiress Ellie Andrews is off to NYC to elope with her pilot beau, King Westley. Her disapproving father is offering a handsome reward to anyone with information about her whereabouts. She boards a greyhound bus and meets Peter, a newspaper reporter who has just lost his job.

Peter initially assumes Ellie is vacuous and incapable of looking after herself. When she is robbed, he sees her strong personality and wants to help her (and also get his hands on a career-defining scoop about their escapades). Ellie promises him just that in exchange for his help to travel to NYC. Over the course of their hitchhiking and motel stays as a pretend married couple, they find common ground and start to fall for one another. 

These tropes are now everywhere, from Star Jocks dating music nerds to pass their exams in The Deal by Elle Kennedy to office rivalry in The Hating Game by Sally Thorne.

Which Golden Age Hollywood Romances are you most drawn to? Let me know below.

Love, Eve x

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