- Alfred Hitchcock's Young and Innocent is a decent early offering from the master of suspense. The film starts off with great promise as a woman's corpse washes up on the shore shortly after we've seen this same woman, the actress Christine Clay (Pamela Carme), arguing with her tic-plagued husband (George Curzon). The body is found by Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney), a man who has the bad fortune of having known the victim, having being seen running away from the corpse, and having owned a raincoat like the one whose belt was used to strangle Mrs. Clay. Although most of the police have concluded that Tisdall is guilty, Erica (Nova Pilbeam), daughter of Police Commissioner Burgoyne (Percy Marmont), suspects otherwise.
- After Tisdall manages to escape from his trial by stealing his inept attorney's glasses, he once again encounters Erica on the road. She comes to trust Tisdall after he helps her with her jalopy, and the two soon begin working to clear Tisdall's name. The most amusing of their adventures has little to do with the plot as they stop off to see Erica's Aunt (Mary Clare) and Uncle (Basil Radford) on the date of their daughter's birthday party. Although the lucky young couple has little trouble evading the authorities, it takes several attempts before they can successfully evade the overbearing Aunt Margaret. I think we've all been to that party before.
- One of the better scenes in the film takes place near the end. While Tisdall has gone to turn himself in, Erica and the friendly tramp Old Will (Edward Rigby) attempt to identify the murderer. They've guessed that he's at a fancy hotel, but they have little to go on aside from the guilty party's notorious twitching. The camera sweeps across the entire ballroom before finally zooming in on the guilty man's eyes. It turns out that he is the drummer for the blackface band, and it isn't long before his own nerves betray him. It's a shame that the rest of the story wasn't as visually or dramatically compelling as the end, but at least Hitchcock gave us a memorable finale.
- I spotted Hitchcock in front of the courthouse.
- So why were blackface musicians popular again?
- The U.S. title of this film is The Girl Was Young. That has even less to do with the story than Young and Innocent.
