Alfred Hitchcock Collectors Guide: Young and Innocent (1937)

• Wrong Man on the run: racing from a charge of murder and the noose, à la The 39 Steps
• Unmissable: This breathless adventure is easily one of Hitchcock’s purest love stories
• An often overlooked classic; gripping tale that simply gets better with every viewing
• Its script ruthlessly rips the guts out of Josephine Tey’s best known detective novel
• Many cast and crew members make repeat appearances in the Master’s chase film
• Returning Hitchcock star Nova Pilbeam matures from a girl to a young woman
• Rife with Hitchcock’s favourite touches and deceptively heavy on symbolism
• Has a complex, noteworthy twist on the Master’s infamous Murderous Gaze
• Also notable example of frequent but little-discussed Hitch theme: blackface

Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.

Young and Innocent, Part 2: Home video and soundtrack releases

Spanish poster

Contents

• Production
• Related articles

Production

Hitchcock thriller with charm and humor.” – Leonard Maltin

It’s love-on-the-run for a young couple when he is falsely accused of murder in this fast-paced mystery thriller. A beautiful
actress is discovered murdered on a beach and a young screenwriter stands accused. Convinced of his innocence, the police chief’s daughter helps him escape to search for the real murderer. With no alibi and few clues, the young couple take the high road to danger and romance. Once again Hitchcock proves himself the master of the hunt, leading the Young and Innocent on a breathless chase which culminates in one of the most brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed sequences on film. – US Hallmark 4-VHS The Master of Intrigue (1995)

While walking along the clifftops, Robert is privy to the shocking sight of a young woman’s lifeless body washing up on the beach. Rushing to get help, he is spied by two sunbathers, who deduce that his frantic running is a sign of his murderous guilt. Robert goes on the lam, seeking help from the policeman’s young daughter, Erica. As Robert and Erica search for the killer, their practical relationship blossoms into romance.

Nova Pilbeam, Hitch, Percy Marmont and Derrick De Marney (standing) on the set of Young and Innocent. This was Marmont’s third Hitchcock; here he plays Erica’s stoic but suffering father.

Ah, the MacGuffin is strong in this one. Slight spoiler: it’s a missing raincoat belt, washed up in the shape of a question mark alongside a body on a beach. This plot device, such as it is, is so flimsy as to be almost transparent – and Hitch and we, the audience, know it. But it doesn’t matter in the least as like so many of his best, this is really just a simple tale of a couple with undeclared mutual affection defying the authorities to go on the run. And if you’ve any romance in your soul, you’re happy to be taken along for the ride.

Hitch’s by-now-regular screenwriter, Charles Bennett, had the main hand in drastically reshaping the source novel, Josephine Tey’s A Shilling for Candles (1936). He completely restructured a successful but fairly run of the mill whodunit into an altogether more dynamic, entertaining beast. Bennett jettisoned Tey’s recurring central character, Inspector Grant, and elevated a minor player in the book, local chief constable’s daughter Erica Burgoyne, to co-lead status. In the process, the narrative was transformed into a chase thriller revolving around an inadvertent adventurer’s race to prove his innocence, à la The 39 Steps.

US lobby card with original, ultimately discarded British title

In that case, a couple of years earlier, Hitch and Bennett had taken huge liberties with John Buchan’s source novel, altering the title and leaving perhaps less than half of his book intact. As a screenplay at least, it was much the better for it. This time they went much further, completely dropping the original title of Tey’s opus and retaining only around a third of its content. The film actually retained the novel’s title until shooting ended, despite having omitted the reason for it (“a shilling for candles” was a sarcastic bequest to a faux-piously religious, scam artist relative). Then it was initially renamed The Girl Was Young but changed again to Young and Innocent just prior to release; however, it retained the former title for US distribution.

In all, it begs the question why bother to pay for the film rights to a property in the first place, if you plan to alter it beyond all recognition? They may as well have just saved the money and ensured their screenplay was sufficiently disguised to avoid accusations of plagiarism. Then again, perhaps not: just look what happened with Nosferatu… Anyway, Tey’s novel is less well remembered today than many of the others to spawn Hitch films, meaning there have been fewer new spins on it. Various BBC Radio dramatisations and solo readings have emerged since the 1950s but only two of these are currently available. One is an unabridged 1993 audiobook and the other an hour-long adaptation for BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

• Josephine Tey: A Life (2015) – Jennifer Morag Henderson

In 2008, Josephine Tey had an unlikely resurrection when An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson was published. It’s the first in an ongoing series of popular novels featuring Tey herself as a murder mystery-solving detective. Though fictional, the books are closely based on Tey’s life and times, and are a riveting read from first to last. The fourth, the time-hopping Fear in the Sunlight, is set in the milieu of the production and release of both Young and Innocent and Rear Window; while The Dead of Winter sees Marlene Dietrich, star of Stage Fright, making a guest appearance. Lastly for now, Shot with Crimson is a transatlantic mystery that goes behind the scenes of Manderley and the making of Rebecca. Demonstrating Upson’s strong feel for the era and eye for detail, it’s clear she really did her homework. Fans of the films, Hitchcock, and good novels in general should investigate without delay. See also the similar retro-Hitchcockian novels detailed in Rebecca.

• An Expert in Murder (2008) French, German
• Fear in the Sunlight (2012) French
• The Dead of Winter (2020) German
• Shot with Crimson (2023) German

Whoever colorized the original black and white photos for The Girl Was Young lobby card above decided that brunette star Nova Pilbeam would look better with gold-tinted hair. The artist for the US one sheet poster below, based on the same publicity photos, similarly opted to turn her into another Hitchcock blonde à la Madeleine Carroll. This was probably a ploy to evoke the winning formula that made The 39 Steps such a stateside success two years earlier; in fact, apart from the missing moustache, it could easily be Donat and Carroll!

Discussion on Young and Innocent – Melodrama Research Group

US poster; alternative, #2

BAMF Style: A 1930s Suit and Sweater Vest

Derrick De Marney is Robert Tisdall, our lead and Wrong Man, while his co-star is Nova Pilbeam as Erica Burgoyne, a mere 17 years old at the time of filming, which took place from the end of May to mid-August 1937. She displays remarkable acting prowess in pulling off an adult female lead, especially considering only three years earlier she played a child in peril, in The Man Who Knew Too Much. Following that film and the two bookending it, she was reportedly “delighted” with the prospect of finally not being put in mortal danger or even actually killed. But then, this is a Hitchcock, so she should be so lucky. A star since the age of 12, she recalled in her 1990 interview, available in print and on DVD, the moment when she as Erica is saved from disappearing down an old mineshaft by grabbing Tisdall’s hand. But it actually belonged to her future husband Pen Tennyson, the film’s assistant director.

“I think it was quite the sunniest film I was involved with. We didn’t use doubles. I did that scene in the mine myself and it was my husband’s-to-be, Pen’s, hand holding me up as I dangled there. I was terrified! But Hitch had this quirky sense of humour and made that scene go on and on, so I thought my arm would come out of its socket.”

It should be noted that Erica has unusually strong characterisation for any female of the era: not only is she the equal of the men around her, she’s actually cleverer and far more capable than all of them, bar her partner in crime (solving). In fact, you could say The Girl Power Was Young.

Also returning is John Longden as a detective in his fourth Hitchcock, following Blackmail (also a detective), Juno and the Paycock and The Skin Game. Somewhat typecast, he’s a male chauvinist pig in all of them. Percy Marmont is back for his third and final film for the Master as Erica’s father, after two ill-starred turns in Rich and Strange, and Secret Agent. This time at least, he ‘s third time lucky for a happy ending. Lastly, Basil Radford also notched up three Hitchcocks; here he makes an appearance as Erica’s sympathetic uncle, one of only two characters to actually support our hapless pair. But his cynicism was well in evidence in a pivotal and scene-stealing joint supporting role in the next Hitchcock, prior to also winding up in the director’s final British film, Jamaica Inn.

Film Weekly? pull-out supplement

Derrick De Marney stands as a man accused. The young lady to his left is Anna Konstam in an uncredited role. Her friend is Peggy Simpson, who also played the Jordans’ maid in The 39 Steps.

Bit player Anna Konstam was the younger sister of Phyllis Konstam, who had small parts in three Hitchcocks before starring in The Skin Game. Like her sister, Anna had an acting career largely confined to the stage, only appearing in seven features and two TV movies. For her next two films, They Drive by Night (1938) and Too Dangerous to Live (1939), she was bumped up to star status but played supporting roles in all the others. Just two of those are currently available: Ealing Studios’ Saloon Bar (1940) starring Hitch regular Gordon Harker; and the Sidney Gilliat-directed Waterloo Road (1945) with John Mills, Stewart Granger and Alastair Sim. Just avoid the latter film’s US DVD-R from bootleggers Reel Vault.

• SB UK: Network 2-DVD/4-film Ealing Studios Rarities Collection, Volume 10 (2014)
• WR UK: Simply/Strawberry Media DVD (2010, reissued 2015), also in 3-DVD Best of British, 4-DVD World War II Volume 1, 7-DVD John Mills Centenary and 12-DVD Stewart Granger Collections
  • BFI Mediatheque (films) | BFI Player

Saloon Bar credits music

Film historian Jon Burrows astutely observed that at no point do any of Young and Innocent’s lead actors escape the confines of Pinewood Studios where the film was principally shot. They certainly feature in many mocked-up outdoor scenes, whether they’re elaborate studio sets or merely acting in front of Hitch’s much-favoured painted backdrops or rear projection screens. All actual exteriors apparently depicting the leads al fresco only show second unit-photographed body doubles, whether in partial or long shot, or filmed from behind.

• Legitimate Cinema: Theatre Stars in Silent British Films, 1908-1918 (2003) – Jon Burrows
• The British Cinema Boom, 1909-1914: A Commercial History (2017) – Jon Burrows

This happens far more often in cinema than you’d think but is usually done so seamlessly it’s hardly noticeable. That is, unless you’re looking out for it, in which case you’ll spot it all the while – prepare to have your fave classic films spoiled! Another example is the obliquely Hitch-related and indeed Hitchcockian mystery-drama So Long at the Fair. Though also shot at Pinewood, by deft application of all the techniques above we are led to believe our damsel is distressed in not-so gay Paree during the 1889 Exposition universelle. Of course, the practise is now drearily ubiquitous in this age of CGI and green screens. There’s a great in-depth analysis of Young and Innocent’s many special effects a third of the way down this unfeasibly long article. They include the incredibly effective matte paintings of Albert Whitlock, who worked on a dozen Hitchcocks, split evenly between his later British and American films.

• The Matte Paintings of The Birds – David Bjerre
• Albert Whitlock and AH/Part 2 – Mark West; The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz and Frenzy
• Thrills Times Four: Matte Art From H’s ’60s Era – NZPete; The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain and Topaz | more Birds
• The Invisible Art (2002) – Mark Cotta Vaz and Craig Barron; The Paradine Case, The Birds, Marnie and Torn Curtain

Of course, Young and Innocent contains a brilliant twist on one of Hitch’s renowned tropes, The Murderous Gaze; here, via the camera’s accusing lens, is perhaps the most elaborate and renowned single shot of his British career:

“Starting on a high-angle framing of the hotel interior, it moves ‘through’ a wall and sweeps on high above the tables, turns to frame the band in long shot, and continues moving down and in on the drummer, who is in blackface, until his eyes fill the screen; he begins to twitch convulsively. This bravura movement, which measures out the full space of the hotel set in a shot lasting one minute and twenty seconds, has an effect rather like the moment in Vertigo when Kim Novak turns towards the camera and a flashback reveals to us what really happened at the Mission San Juan Bautista, when she ran up the tower and the body fell. The story-tellers, via the wordless mechanism of the camera, have chosen to give us information which the other puzzled protagonists still do not have access to, thus opening up a new dimension of suspense: will they find out what we now know, and with what consequences?” – English Hitchcock (1999) by Charles Barr

Speaking of gazes, there’s a novel running theme throughout, concerning clear vision: hardly any of the players have it. Certainly in the metaphorical sense, with regard to the many bumbling policemen and detectives (a favourite Hitch theme), who unwittingly do all they can to obstruct the course of true justice. Then there’s Tisdall’s avaricious, short-sighted solicitor who automatically presumes his client’s guilt; nonetheless, his glasses come in very handy for helping said client prove otherwise. Next is Hitch in his cameo, who misses a golden opportunity because he’s too busy looking in the wrong direction. He’s followed by Erica’s interfering aunt, whose literal blindfolding symbolises her wilful ignorance. Then ultimately, there’s the convulsive eye-twitching culprit himself, whose uncontrollable blinking seals his guilt.

Overall, it’s very reminiscent of the brilliant running gag in The 39 Steps, whereby our hero is disbelieved by everyone he confides in and only believed when he’s lying to them!

Though the film’s use of blackface is often highlighted as its sole undesirable aspect that hasn’t dated well, less spoken of is the fact that it needn’t have featured at all. The band aren’t performing in any way that would even marginally explain it, and the culprit certainly doesn’t need it for a disguise as, in the film’s biggest plot hole, despite being the obvious choice he’s never once considered as a suspect by the police! After committing the foul deed, he simply carries on living life as normal and in plain sight. We can comfortably ascribe this unsavoury aspect to Hitch’s own predilection for blackface, as it featured in at least nine of his films; far too many to explain away as mere coincidence. Though it’s rarely discussed among more widely celebrated Hitchcock themes, they include The Pleasure Garden, Downhill, Elstree Calling, The Man Who Knew Too Much, etc.

• The Aryan Trope in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock – Sandra Shevey
• Hitchcock and Race: Is the Wrong Man a White Man? – Jonathan J. Cavallero

Despite its one major shortcoming, Young and Innocent is just a simple love story at heart: boy meets girl, then it’s two against the world. It stands out for being the only one of Hitch’s six-strong golden run of 1930s thrillers not centred on international politics or espionage. It can’t be denied that even with its many charms, it plays like a more youthful, less wordly and cynical retread of The 39 Steps, despite leads De Marney and Donat both being the same age, 30, at the time of filming. It could even be argued it has the feel of a film leading up to its illustrious predecessor, rather than one following it. Not least because the basic framework of the two is so similar as to inevitably invite comparison. But Young and Innocent’s simplicity and sweetness are its core strengths and, much like The 39 Steps, I find myself loving it even more with each viewing. Nonetheless, even though many are apt to classify it as a slightly sub-optimal Hitch, it still knocks most other directors’ efforts into a cocked hat. Miss it at your peril.

“I liked him [Hitch] very much. For instance, in Young and Innocent, there was a dog that both Hitch and I adored; there came a time that we had finished the sequences with the dog and he was supposed to go back. We were both so upset that Hitch decided to write him another sequence so we could keep him around for another five or six days.”

• Sixty Voices: Celebrities Recall the Golden Age of British Cinema (1992) – ed. Brian McFarlane; 1990 interview

Following Young and Innocent’s release, Hitch spoke tantalisingly of another project with echoes of its penultimate scene. In June 1938, he sailed with his family to New York for negotiations with Samuel Goldwyn and David O. Selznick. Of course, he eventually accepted the latter’s offer but while there described a possibility:

Whether he works in Hollywood or England, he will go on making his own kind of picture. His mind is full of plans; nothing else can get in. When he was last in New York he wasn’t half so concerned about his financial negotiations as about a story idea he had. “The picture would open near the London docks, at dawn,” Hitchcock liked to explain. “The police are chasing a lascar [Indian] sailor down a grain elevator. He gets away from them, runs through the gates into the road, and finally hides in a sailors’ boarding house. The police catch up with him, and he escapes from them again.

The chase goes through the Sunday-morning market in Middlesex Street. At last the lascar comes to St. Paul’s Cathedral and runs in, with the police after him. There’s a service going on, so he runs upstairs to the balcony that goes around the dome. Just as he reaches the top step he falls over the railing down into the nave, dead, with a knife in his back. Some of the congregation rush up and turn him over. One of them touches his face and a smudge of blacking comes off [in an echo of Young and Innocent’s finale]. The man isn’t a lascar at all—he’s just made up as one.” At this point in his recitation Hitchcock would become subdued. Then he’d say, “It’s good so far. But what happens after that? I wish I knew.”

Well, we never did get to find out, although almost 30 years later Hitch incorporated a very similar scenario early on in The Man Who Knew Too Much – yup: more blackface. Around the same time as his first New York trip, Hitch was reported to be working alongside Alma Reville and his assistant Joan Harrison on another script based on the short story “False Witness” by French author Marcel Achard. An alternate title of “Perjury” was also announced and it was to star Nova Pilbeam again, as Hitch related in “Nova Grows Up“, a very complimentary piece written for Film Weekly (5.2.38). But in the event neither transpired; instead, Hitch agreed to pick up a stalled studio project, tentatively titled The Lost Lady…

Custom-painted poster at the Theatre Royal in Perth, 1938 (source, discussion)

Young and Innocent, Part 2: Home video and soundtrack releases

Related articles

This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.