Young and Innocent
Alfred Hitchcock
A young man has his raincoat stolen, and later finds himself accused of strangling a young woman with the coat's belt. At his trial, he escapes and begins his own investigation with the help of Erica, a colonel's daughter convinced of the escapee's innocence...
With : Derrick de Marney, Nova Pilbeam, Percy Marmont, Edward Rigby
Screenplay : C. Bennett, A. Amstrong, d'après le roman éponyme de Josephine Tey
Image : Bernard Knowles
Music : Louis Levy
Screenplay : C. Bennett, A. Amstrong, d'après le roman éponyme de Josephine Tey
Image : Bernard Knowles
Music : Louis Levy
Production : Gaumont-British
Distribution: Océan Films
Distribution: Océan Films
After his previous 23 films (including The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Thirty-Nine Steps), Young and Innocent was the last film directed by Hitchcock in Great Britain. Based on a poorly written detective novel, Hitchcock managed to transform its thin intrigue into a comical spy film with sharp dialog, poetic imagery and an omnipresent absurd humour. In Young and Innocent, Hitchcock laid out the themes that would dominate his coming career in Hollywood: his masterful control of suspense and the sense of humour with which he treated detective stories. "I'll give you an example of a rule of suspense I applied in Young and Innocent. The idea is to give the audience a piece of information that the characters don't know yet. Thanks to this rule, the public knows more than the heroes and so can ask itself more intensely ‘How will it unfold?'" (A. Hitchcock).