Alfred Hitchcock Collectors’ Guide: Young and Innocent (1937)

• Wrong Man on the run: racing from the noose to prove he’s innocent of murder, à la The 39 Steps
• Gripping tale is one of Hitchcock’s purest love stories; gets better with every viewing
• Script ruthlessly rips the guts out of Josephine Tey’s best known detective novel
• Various cast and crew members make repeat appearances in a Hitchcock 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
• Heavily bootlegged for years in many substandard home video editions
• First time ever: every official worldwide release detailed and compared

Note: this is one of 100-odd Hitchcock articles coming over the next few months. Any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.

Spanish poster

Contents

• Production
• Home video releases
  • Preserved transfer
  • Remastered transfer
  • Screenshots
• Soundtrack releases
• Related articles

Production

Ah, the MacGuffin is strong in this one. Slight spoiler: it’s a missing raincoat belt. 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 Hitch’s 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.

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.

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.

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.

US lobby card with original, ultimately discarded British title

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 novels starring 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 (2012, 11-CD set, French edition), is set in the milieu of the production and release of both Young and Innocent and Rear Window. 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.

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 golden-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 evince the winning formula that made The 39 Steps such a stateside success two years earlier.

US poster

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 not being put in mortal danger or even actually killed. But then, this is a Hitchcock, so she should be so lucky. 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.

Derrick De Marney stands as a man accused. The young lady to the 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 part 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 final 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

Every Word Spoken in Black/Brownface in Every Hitchcock Film

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!

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, 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. Around the same time, along with Alma Reville and his assistant Joan Harrison, he was reported to be working 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 he related in “Nova Grows Up“, a very complimentary piece he wrote 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…

Home video releases

US MGM DVD: the best a man (or girl) can get

As you’d expect, being one of Hitch’s later successful British films with an unbroken chain of title, Young and Innocent has been well looked after and the original negative, along with various other nitrate copies, is safely tucked away in the BFI National Archive. Therefore, all licensed VHS, LaserDisc and early DVD editions feature a transfer of an excellent condition pre-print element. But a new, digitally remastered transfer of the same element broke cover in 2008 and has appeared on various releases since. For detail, grain and stability, it’s leaps and bounds ahead of the old transfer, though as is often the case the first reel or so is still a little rough, having an abundance of minor surface scratches and fine vertical lines. But once it settles down, it looks absolutely lovely. Either will more than suffice but if you have a larger screen or even projector, the latter is definitely the one to get.

Incidentally, a full inventory of those vault elements doesn’t appear to have been carried out, so there’s a slim chance the film’s original ending exists. It consists of an additional scene in which Erica’s closing invitation for Robert to come to tea is actually realised, as he takes his place at the Burgoynes’ table.

Another item currently MIA that would make the perfect extra is Round the Film Studios “No. 1: Pinewood, Part 9“, one of a TV series of film set reports, this one featuring Young and Innocent.

Preserved transfer

• US: Criterion LaserDisc (1987) sleeve essay
• UK: VCI DVD (2001)
  • Network DVD (2008), also in 10-DVD/11-film H: The British Years
  • ITV DVD (2008) – The Times newspaper giveaway; only UK DVD w/English subtitles
• Germany: Concorde 6-DVD/7-film AH: The Early Years (2003, reissued 2011)

• France: Journaux.fr DVD/magazine (2002, 2005)
  • TF1 Vidéo DVD (2008), also in 5-DVD H: Le maître du suspens (2005, reissued 2010, 2016) – beware: forced French subs
• Spain: Filmax DVD (2000)
  • Divisa DVD (2003, reissued 2012), also in 4-DVD AH box set
• Benelux: Video/Film Express DVD (2004), also in 5-DVD H Collection: The Classics, Volume 2 and 10-DVD/11-film Classic H Collection/alt
• Hungary: Cinetel DVD (2005), also in 5-DVD H box set
• Scandinavia: Futurefilm 8-DVD/9-film H Classic Collection (2006) info

Of the older transfer DVDs, perhaps most notable is the UK Network with a Charles Barr intro (3½min), the omnipresent “Early Years” doc (24min) and an extensive image gallery. Most of the rest are pretty much vanilla, apart from the French TF1 with two non-subbed French-language featurettes (23 and 27 min). But it does have forced French subs on its “Early Years” doc and the feature itself, though not on the French dub option which, incidentally, is only present in an anachronistic 5.1 surround remix. Unusually for the German Concorde set, its transfer of this film is a little over-brightened and contrasty, losing some detail in the highlights.

Remastered transfer

UK Network Blu-ray: equal first place for A/V

• US: MGM DVD (2009), also in 8-DVD AH Premiere Collection/warning
  • Criterion Prime Video HD | MGM Prime Video
• UK: Network BD (2015)

• Germany: Pidax BD and DVD (2021)
• France: Filmedia DVD (2015), also in 4-DVD AH box set
  • ESC Editions BD (2020), also in 3 Films de AH

• Poland: Studio Printel Digipak DVD (2009), also in 7-DVD H: Wczesne filmy mistrza and 6-DVD set
• Denmark: Soul Media DVD (2021), also in 13-DVD AH Movie Collection
• Australia: Madman DVD/alt (2011)
• Brazil: Versátil 2-DVD/4-film A Arte de AH/alt (2016) info

The US’s HD options are presently limited to streaming services (go multi-region!) but happily, region B buyers have three great choices. Network’s UK BD ports over the extras from their earlier DVD while the German Pidax discs have Hitch’s 1966 German talk show appearance (45min), previously included on domestic releases of Jamaica Inn. That’s joined by the “Early Years” doc, a gallery, three unrelated trailers and, in the DVD only, a reprint of the 1984 Wiedleroither Filmprogramm. Note that for the first time, Pidax have supplied the film’s two German dubs, from 1975 and 1984 (info), neither of which were present on the previous Concorde DVD.

Unusually, though both discs were released on the same day, each has different artwork. The BD, with translated font, is based on the striking 1978 French re-release poster which, like many publicity materials from the mid-50s onwards, gives greater prominence to the director than the film or its stars. This is due to the popularity of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and his other frequent TV appearances making him at least as famous as his cinematic works. Meanwhile, the Pidax DVD, with ported font, uses this unique poster:

This beautiful hand-painted British poster sold for £4,400 on February 28, 2020. Note the misspelling.

Lastly, the French BD’s only extra is a short introduction by documentarian Christophe Champclaux but, like the UK BD, it does have lossless audio, which is lacking on the single-layer German BD. All three releases also have optional subtitles in their respective languages. As is sadly usual for British Hitches, crappy looking bootlegs of this title are legion and there’s at least one illicit BD-R, courtesy of Spanish crooks Feel Films.

First remastered DVD choice is the superb US disc which is packed with extras, several of which are exclusive: an audio commentary by American critic and author Bill Krohn, isolated music and effects track, Hitchcock/Truffaut interview excerpts, restoration comparison, image gallery and a 6-page booklet. This is still easily the best DVD available. The Oz disc has a 1990 audio interview with Ms Pilbeam and an essay booklet, but good luck finding a copy: it’s long deleted and as rare as hen’s teeth but you can always try eBay. The French Filmedia disc is even lighter on extras with just a very short, indirectly related French-language featurette.

Screenshots

French ESC Editions BD

• Derrick De Marney – DVDs: US boots Brentwood, Madacy; UK VCI, French TF1 Vidéo; Benelux Video/Film Express; UK Network; German Concorde; US MGM; BD: UK Network
• Syd Crossley and H. F. Maltby – DVDs: US boots Brentwood, Madacy; UK VCI, French TF1 Vidéo; Benelux Video/Film Express; UK Network; German Concorde; US MGM; BD: UK Network
• Pursuing policemen – DVDs: US boots Brentwood, Madacy; French TF1 Vidéo; Benelux Video/Film Express; UK Network; German Concorde; US MGM; BD: UK Network

Filmedia DVD and ESC BD at DVDClassik.

More screenshots here: Bootlegs Galore: The Great Alfred Hitchcock Rip-off.

Soundtrack releases

Staying on the subject of bootlegs… there are many official re-recordings of part and full scores from Hitch’s American films, but sadly not so for his British works. So far, there are only re-recorded excerpts from The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. Nonetheless, there are various Hitchcock film music compilations featuring selections from those and several other British talkies. But they’re almost all bootlegs too, mostly lifted directly from the film soundtracks themselves. The sole fully-licensed exceptions are:

• Museum Music 23-tr CD AH: Music from His Films (1999)
• Elusive Sounds 20-tr MP3 AH: Memorable Music from His Films (2012)

They include two cues from Young and Innocent composed by the film’s musical director Louis Levy: “Erica at the Mill” and “No One Can Like the Drummer Man”, along with passages from Blackmail, Steps, Sabotage and The Lady Vanishes. But the isolated music and effects track on the great US MGM DVD detailed above remains easily the most significant soundtrack release for Young and Innocent. It’s the only one of Hitch’s British films so accorded, alongside a handful of American films with similar tracks or full isolated scores on particular releases: Rebecca, Notorious, The Paradine Case, North by Northwest and Psycho.

Related articles

• Alfred Hitchcock Collectors’ Guide: Setting the Scene
  • • Films in the Collectors’ Guide
  • Part 2: British Film Restorations and Collections
• Alfred Hitchcock Collectors’ Guide: Miscellaneous British Films
• Free the Hitchcock 9! Releasing the BFI-Restored Silents on Home Video
• Bootlegs Galore: The Great Alfred Hitchcock Rip-off
• Alfred Hitchcock: Dial © for Copyright: British Law
  • Part 2: American Law
  • Part 3: British Films
  • Part 4: American Films
• Hitchcock/Truffaut: The Men Who Knew So Much
• Alma Reville: The Power Behind Hitchcock’s Throne
• Alfred Hitchcock Collectors’ Guide: The British Years in Print
  • Part 2: Best of the Rest
• Alfred Hitchcock: The Dark Side or the Wrong Man?
• Alfred Hitchcock Collectors’ Guide: Miscellaneous Releases
• Beware of Pirates! How to Avoid Bootleg Blu-rays and DVDs
• Charlie Chaplin Collectors’ Guide, Part 2: The Bad, the Ugly and the Good

For more detailed specifications of official releases mentioned, check out the ever-useful DVDCompare. This article is regularly updated, so please leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions.