YOUNG AND INNOCENT

Now here's a question - whatever did happen to Nova Pilbeam? She is really good in this gentle little romantic thriller from Alfred Hitchcock. A film star is murdered by her estranged husband after he gets fed up with all her affairs. Her body is found on the beach by one of her beaux "Robert Tisdall" (Derrick de Marney). He goes to fetch the police but is seen running from the crime and soon it is he that the police are searching for. It's at this point that it all gets a little too slapstick; he is caught; then lots of mix-ups and police incompetence before he eventually embarks on a mission to prove his innocence with the help of the aforementioned 18-year-old Pilbeam. It's not one of Hitchcock's better films but is suspenseful and tense enough at times - if somewhat let down by the ending - enough to pass 80 minutes, at any rate.