Young and Innocent (1937) - film review

When movie star Christine Clay is murdered, suspicion immediately falls on a young man named Robert Tisdall with whom she had a brief acquaintance.  Tisdall was seen running away from the beach on which the body of the dead woman was discovered, and the belt with which she was strangled is believed to belong to his raincoat.   When it is later revealed that Clay left Tisdall a large sum of money in her will, the case against him appears rock solid.  Yet Tisdall protests his innocence and, determined to clear his name, escapes from police custody.  He finds an unlikely ally in Erica Burgoyne, the daughter of the local Chief Constable.  Persuaded of his innocence, Erica resolves to help him, although the odds seem to be stacked overwhelmingly against them...

Young and Innocent shows a lighter, more human side to Hitchcock than many of  his films, and it can just as easily be classified as a romantic comedy as a suspense thriller.  Interestingly, this was the only one of the thrillers that Hitchcock made in the 1930s which did not have a political back story, and it has often been described as a remake of his earlier The 39 Steps (1935) with all of the political intrigue removed.

In common with all of Hitchcock’s British thrillers, the film is exceptionally well cast.  The female lead is played by 18-year old Nova Pilbeam, who made her screen debut in a previous Hitchcock film, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934).  Despite her obvious youth and inexperience, Pilbeam has a commanding screen presence and her character presages the charismatic strong Hitchcockian heroines which would come to the fore during the director’s Hollywood years.   Derrick De Marney is an equally effective casting choice – his gentle screen persona puts his character on an equal footing with Pilbeam’s making their partnership a real team effort, in contrast to what we see in many Hitchcock films, where the male character is usually dominant.

Hitchcock’s reputation as the master of suspense is amply demonstrated in this film by some meticulously crafted suspense sequences.  Perhaps the best example is the comedic sequence where the two main characters are drawn into attending a children’s party from which there appears to be no escape, whilst the police come ever closer.   Another example is the nail-biting action scene in a disused mine, which feels like a spirited homage to the silent classic The Perils of Pauline.

Young and Innocent shows Hitchcock at his most playful and inventive and gives us one of his most memorable visual effects – which the director would later reuse  in his 1964 film, Marnie.   Just when our heroes appear to be well and truly defeated, the villain is suddenly revealed to us, in the most grandiose and imaginative way possible.  The camera starts with a wide high shot of a busy ballroom and begins to track slowly across the room, like a missile closing in on its preordained target.  The question that forms in the mind of every spectator is: where are we going?  The answer is soon revealed.  The camera slowly descends and tracks forward towards the band on the far side of the room.  It moves inexorably towards one member of the band until his face, grotesquely distorted by make-up, fills the entire frame. It is unmistakably the face of the killer.  But there is no relief for the audience – this is merely the prelude to the film’s suspenseful conclusion...

© James Travers 2008

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