Product: Young & Innocent [VHS] (1938)
Rating: 3.0
A film for Hitchcock fans
Young and Innocent is not an especially well known Hitchcock film and to an extent this is justified. When one compares it with his great British films of the thirties, such as The Thirty-Nine Steps or The Lady Vanishes, it seems a minor work. There is no real sense that the characters in Young and Innocent are in genuine danger and thus the chase story lacks tension. The relationship between the two leads lacks the spark that is so often found in Hitchcock films. This is partly because Derrick De Marney's performance remains stage-bound and Nova Pilbeam was considered too young to engage in sexy dialogue. Thus the film lacks the amusing and slightly risqué banter which might have been present if the lead actress was, for example, Madeleine Carroll. The story is similar to The Thirty-Nine Steps, but Pilbeam is far too ready to go on the run with De Marney. I'm not suggesting that Hitchcock should have used handcuffs again, but he really needed to provide some motivation for a policeman's daughter going off with a possible murderer other than a vague belief in his innocence.While this film is not first-rate Hitchcock it has some very fine scenes. I particularly liked the scene where a group of policemen hitch a ride with a farmer transporting pigs, for it shows Hitchcock's quite daring humour, as `pigs' is impolite British slang for policemen.The print used for the Laserlight DVD is good. I noticed one slight cut where a swear word had been censored, but this probably occurred in the thirties. Otherwise the print seems complete and is clear with only minor damage. The dialogue is at times a little indistinct but can almost always be followed.The extra features on this DVD are nothing special. The best thing about the Cheney Vase is Hitchcock's mocking of the sponsors in his introduction. The story itself is quite dull.