247. Young and Innocent (1937) Review

Do You Expect Us To Talk?
Do You Expect Us To Talk?
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Do You Expect Us To Talk?
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Join 007 fans Rebecca, Chris and Dave as we fully use our license to chat while originally went on a journey and watched all Bond film each week. Now we’re taking on all movies franchises for some critical analysis and inappropriate humour.
Ep 246 Young and Innocent (1937) : Do You Expect Us To Talk?
Ep 246 Young and Innocent (1937) : Do You Expect Us To Talk?
13 hours ago
Do you expect us to talk returns with more Hitchcock. Continuing on with his early work, we review 1937’s Young and Innocent. Continuing with the familiar theme of an ordinary man in an abnormal situation, a man goes on the run as he is accused of a murder he did not commit. With the help of the daughter of the chief of the police he works to find out who really did it.
Join Becca, Chris and Dave as we discuss not taking a murder charge seriously, awkward age differences, facial tics and how a coat can prove innocence.
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This was fun. You (all) seemed to have enjoyed it, at least to an extent, but got very hung up with anachronistic points. Especially, you kept returning to the age difference between a 17-year-old and a 30-year-old, even suggesting that that it would be a crime in the USA. Well, the film is British and the age of consent was 12 until 1851 (raised to 13) and 1885 (raised to 16, where it is still). And about 2/3 of American states would see that as legal. (The other 1/3 set the limit at 18.)
But this is not the main thing. My problem with what is a bit of fun is that Hitchcock ruins. the story. The novel is in two broad parts - the 'chase' with the lead man and the young girl, and the 'reveal' that he's been cleared. There then follows many chapters that line up the suspects. In the end, the murderer is revealed as the female journalist who writes horoscopes for a New York magazine.
Hitch films only the red-herring 'chase' section and ignores the rest, including the 'reveal'. Instead, he adds a completely new ending - the Grand Hotel, complete with N----- Minstrels (very common in those days - the BBC showed the Black & White Minstrel Show till the 1970s). No wonder Josephine Tey was upset by the adaptation, though she did later allow The Franchise Affair to be filmed later, but not by Hitch. Interestingly, it does involve an under-age girl who's had a fling with a travelling salesman.
Hitch did this sort of thing quite often. You have mentioned Suspicion, from Francis Iles' (Anthony Berkeley Cox's) Before The Fact. Hitch changed the ending so significantly (the 'baddy' climbs the stairs carrying a glass of milk, which we guess is going to poison his pregnant wife - but the film has him holding his wife who has had a 'bad turn'. Cox was livid,
Most of the plot holes you refer to directly follow from Hitch's bowdlerism.
Let me comment on the way the police worked then. There were many police forces (there still are, but there were more - places such as Liverpool and Brighton had them with their own Chief Constables, very often ex-Army officers). A Shilling For Candles is set in Kent, more specifically around Canterbury. Such 'rural' Chief Constables would often ask for help in a big case from the Metropolitan Police, and would "call in Scotland Yard". That is what happens here. It continued into the 1960s.
But I still enjoyed your banter, which was intelligent and thoughtful., and look forward to the next.