Young and Innocent (1937)

(On Cable TV, September 2021) Coming from the phase of Alfred Hitchcock’s career in which he was consistently hitting evermore ambitious marks in the United Kingdom, Young and Innocent features some familiar material for him — a couple on the run, trying to identify the real murderer even as the police are tracking them. You can already recognize Hitchcock’s showmanship here — a number of sequences go beyond the strictly necessary, whether we’re talking about a suspense scene in which the hero tries to rescue a woman from falling into a pit, or a much-lauded single shot that sweeps across a busy hotel lobby to zoom incessantly on the murderer finally located. It’s a competent thriller even today, and goes well with titles such as near-contemporary The 39 Steps and The Man Who Knew Too Much in illustrating why Hitchcock was, by the late 1930s, just about ready to board a transatlantic trip all the way to Hollywood.