Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Pluskylang Great Film overall

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

jc-osms This early Hitchcock feature resembles his earlier hit "The 39 Steps" it could have been called "The 40 Steps". Again we have an innocent young man charged with murder who goes on the run in tow with a pretty young female who at first dislikes and disbelieves him but who before too long has fallen for him and helped clear his name.The best thing in front of the camera is the 18 year old, strikingly named Nova Pilbeam, (wonderful name for a debutante!) who is pretty, sunny and charming in equal measure. The equally wonderfully named Derrick De Marney, who plays the man on the run, Robert Tusdall, on the other hand, I found to be a bit more gormless with an odd smirk on his face which never quite goes away. Together they mesh reasonably well if you can excuse their frightfully posh clipped English accents of the time. There are some nice Hitchcockian touches that as a fan I enjoyed, like the way he starts the film right in the middle of a bitter argument between the soon-to-be-murdered film actress and her jealous, twitchy, in more ways than one, husband, the way Tisdall distracts the courtroom staff to make his escape, a ruse similarly played out in more than one subsequent Hitch feature, most notably "North By Northwest's" auction scene, the saved-by-her-fingertips rescue of Pilbeam after the car crashes down an old mine shaft, featuring a subjective face-shot we'd see again in "Saboteur" and of course "North By North-west" plus most famously the great tracking shot near the end which literally eyeballs the guilty man.Lots of the rest of it, to be honest is a little stiff and creaky, like the scenes with Pilbeam and her family round the breakfast table and of dull, plodding policemen on their tails. There are some awful model shots too, one in particular of Tisdall running away from the camera had me giggling out loud and the fact that the show-band is playing in black-face certainly jars with modern sensibilities.But otherwise, you can see Hitchcock forming his style here, although it would take an Atlantic crossing a few years later for the Master to deliver a mostly superb run of films throughout the 40's and 50's on which his reputation largely rests.

FilmCriticLalitRao Apart from being a decent crime thriller, "Young and innocent" functions as a character study of its protagonists as Hitchcock shows viewers their presence of mind and ability to understand each other's sentiments. They are perfectly aware of risks they are taking as they are running from police. It is the risk which brings them closer to each other. Their innocence also speaks a lot about their backgrounds as the girl puts her father's reputation in danger as she decides to help a man who has been unjustly accused of killing a famous actress. Mystery and suspense become a key component of this film's scenario as viewers are immediately led to witness what happens after a crime has been committed. This film has been listed under great director Alfred Hitchcock's filmography as "The girl was young" but it is better known to some of his inveterate fans as "Young and innocent". This title makes perfect sense as a guilty person is punished only once for evil deeds. This is not the same in the case of an innocent person who is punished more than once as the threat of having been framed unjustly looms large over his/her head.

tieman64 Sandwiched between "The 39 Steps" and "The Lady Vanishes", "Young and Innocent" is an oft neglected thriller by Alfred Hitchcock. Released in 1937, the film stars Derrick De Marney as Robert Tisdall, a struggling screenwriter who is wrongly accused of a crime. On the run from the police, Tisdall sets off to both prove his innocence and locate the film's true culprit.It's a familiar Hitchcockian plot, but "Young and Innocent" nevertheless contains a number of excellent moments. These include an elaborate, now famous crane shot, and an audacious cutaway to a flock of birds, angrily screaming as a corpse tumbles into view.Bizarrely, Hitchcock paints Tisdall as a man who, though innocent of murder, nevertheless feigns innocence in order to win the heart of a naive teenager (directors Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol would flat-out label Tisdall a "weasel" and "male gigolo"!). In this way the film's title has a double meaning: Tisdall, innocent of crime, but unscrupulous enough to prey upon the genuinely young and innocent. 7.5/10 – Worth one viewing.

TheLittleSongbird Not one of Hitchcock's best films, but certainly one of his most overlooked. Despite being seemingly treated as a minor entry, Young and Innocent does show a master at work and is lots of fun as well as nail-biting. It's only let down by the presence of the black-face band towards the end which will leave a bad taste in the mouth nowadays for most, up to then Young and Innocent was actually without fault. As always with Hitchcock it is a very well-made film and has Hitchcock written all over it, that's how strongly his direction and unique touches come through. It is in Young and Innocent that has one of his most ingenious touches, which is the travelling shot to the murderer's twitching eye, chilling and audaciously shot, proving that not only was Hitchcock the unparallelled master of suspense but one of the masters of film technique too. The music is haunting, the atmosphere tense and nail-biting to the end and the dialogue snappy and not giving anything away. The story moves quickly and without a pacing lull, with many memorable scenes, the children's party scene will effectively jangle the nerves as will the scene in the mine. The climax is also suspenseful and nerve-shredding, helped partly by that travelling shot but mostly because of the atmosphere. The story also succeeds in how you care for the lead characters every single step of the way, and the acting is strong. Derrick De Marnay and Nova Pilbeam(much improved from her acting in The Man Who Knew Too Much) are likable leads, and the supporting cast don't put a foot wrong either, nobody gives one of the all-time great performances in a Hitchcock film but they didn't try to. To conclude, a great film and deserves more attention. 9/10 Bethany Cox