Young and Innocent

Plot

At a retreat on the English coast, Christine Clay (Pamela Carme), a successful actress, argues passionately with her jealous ex-husband Guy (George Curzon). Not accepting her Reno divorce as valid, he accuses her of having an affair. His eyes twitch violently as they argue. Finally he leaves.

The next morning, Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney) happens to be walking along the seaside when Christine's dead body washes ashore. Tisdall recognizes her, and runs for help. Two young women arrive just in time to see him racing away from the corpse. The police quickly decide that he is the only suspect. Christine was strangled with the belt from a raincoat; Tisdall's raincoat is missing and he says it was recently stolen. He admits knowing the victim from three years ago when he sold her a story, but they assume the two have been having an affair. When they learn that she left him money in her will (unknown to him), Tisdall is arrested.

Tisdall is grilled all night by Scotland Yard detectives until he faints. He is revived by the aid of Erica Burgoyne (Nova Pilbeam), daughter of the local police Chief Constable. Tisdall is assigned an incompetent barrister, and is taken into court for his formal arraignment. Doubting if his innocence will ever be established, he takes advantage of overcrowding in the courthouse to escape, wearing the barrister's eyeglasses as a disguise. He gets away by riding on the running board of Erica's Morris car, revealing himself to her after the car runs out of petrol.

He helps push the car to a filling station and pays for petrol, and convinces her to give him a ride. Though she was initially fearful and unsure about her passenger, Erica eventually becomes convinced of his innocence and elects to help him in any way that she can. They are eventually spotted together, forcing both to stay on the run from the police. Tisdall tries to prove his innocence by tracking down the stolen coat: if it still has its belt, the one found next to Christine's body must not be his.

The duo succeed in tracing Tisdall's coat to Old Will (Edward Rigby), a homeless, but sociable, china-mender. But Will was not the thief; he was given the coat by a man with twitchy eyes. And when Will received the coat, its belt was missing.

Separated from the group, Erica is taken in by the police. Upon realizing that his daughter has fully allied herself with a murder suspect (in fact, they are in love), her father chooses to resign his position as Chief Constable rather than arrest her for assisting him. Tisdall sneaks into their house to see her, intending to surrender next, but she mentions that the coat had a box of matches from the Grand Hotel in a pocket. Tisdall has never been there: perhaps the murderer has a connection to the hotel.

Erica and Will go to the hotel together, hoping to find him. In a memorably long, continuous sequence, the camera pans right from their entrance to the hotel and then moves forward from the very back of the hotel ballroom, finally focusing in extreme closeup on the drummer in a dance band performing in blackface. His eyes are twitching. He is Guy.

Recognizing Old Will in the audience, and seeing policemen nearby (actually they have followed Will in the hopes of finding Tisdall), Guy performs poorly due to fear. He takes medicine to try to control the twitching, but it makes him very sleepy, and he is berated by the conductor. Eventually, Guy faints in mid-performance, drawing the attention of Erica and the police. Immediately after being revived and confronted, he confesses his crime and begins laughing hysterically.

Erica then tells her father that she thinks it is time they invited Tisdall to their home for dinner.

Main cast

Reception

Aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports 100% approval of Young and Innocent, with an average rating of 7.6/10.

Changes from the novel

Significant changes were made in adapting the book for the film. The novel is a whodunit centred on the Scotland Yard inspector, who is Tey's regular character Alan Grant. The storyline involving Robert Tisdall, Erica Burgoyne, and the missing coat is similar to the film story, but in the novel it is only a subplot and ends part way through the book when Erica finds the coat and it is intact. Grant then focuses on other suspects, none of whom (including the actual murderer in the novel) appear in the film. Christine Clay in the novel is not divorced, but is in an unconventional marriage to an aristocrat.

Hitchcock's cameo

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. He can be seen outside the courthouse, holding a camera, at 14 minutes into the film.

Digital restoration

A frame-by-frame digital restoration was done by Prasad Corporation, removing dirt, tears, scratches and other defects.