Where does Young and Innocent fall in my Alfred Hitchcock rankings?

I can’t describe the feeling I get when I sit down to watch one of the few remaining Alfred Hitchcock films that I haven’t yet seen. Serious anticipation and excitement, I suppose. Young and Innocent, from 1937 and the master’s early British, pre-Hollywood period, was next on my list, helpfully because it’s available on Amazon Prime.

It stars a couple of largely forgotten actors, Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney, who do their best as they charm their way through decent performances in a story about the man being falsely accused of murder and being helped in his cross-region escape by the daughter of an esteemed police leader. They seek to find a piece of evidence that can remove him as the suspect.

Some patented early Hitchcock tricks make the film worthy of watching—perhaps much more than the somewhat vanilla script and the performance of the actors. As usual, the director appears in a bit part, this time early on as a photographer outside the courthouse. Some of the shots of the bad guy—obvious from the start with his tritchy eyes and volatile romance and later on with the curious choice of being costumed in black face—come from interesting angles and creative camera trickery.

It’s certainly well worth watching, but definitely don’t start any kind of Hitchcock journey you should be making (if you care at all about movies) with this release. It’s markedly inferior to his best work.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Where might it fit in with the Hitchcock films I’ve seen? I’ve added it below to the category “A little less great but still in the realm of classic.” (And yes, after all these years, I still haven’t seen them all.)

Favorite movie ever, Hitchock or not … period:

• Psycho (1960)

Next tier of Hitchcock … stone-cold masterpieces:

• Rope (1948)

• Rear Window (1954)

• North by Northwest (1959)

• Vertigo (1958)

Really great:

• To Catch a Thief (1955)

• Suspicion (1941)

• Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

• Spellbound (1945)

• Notorious (1946)

• Strangers on a Train (1951)

• Dial M for Murder (1954)

• The Birds (1963)

• Rebecca (1940)

• Foreign Correspondent (1940)

• Lifeboat (1944)

A little less great but still in the realm of classic:

• The Trouble with Harry (1955)

• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

• Marnie (1964)

• Torn Curtain (1966)

• The Lady Vanishes (1938)

• The 39 Steps (1935)

• Young and Innocent (1937)

Not quite prime-time Hitchcock … watch them if you’ve made it through the others listed above here:

• Topaz (1969)

• Frenzy (1972)

• Family Plot (1976)

• The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Hollywood and later era I’ve yet to see:

• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)

• Saboteur (1942)

• The Paradine Case (1947)

• Under Capricorn (1949)

• Stage Fright (1950)

• I Confess (1953)

• The Wrong Man (1956)

British sound films I’ve yet to see:

• Blackmail (1929)

• Juno and the Paycock (1930)

• Murder! (1930)

• Elstree Calling (1930)

• The Skin Game (1931)

• Mary (1931)

• Rich and Strange (1931)

• Number Seventeen (1932)

• Waltzes from Vienna (1934)

• Secret Agent (1936)

• Sabotage (1936)

• Jamaica Inn (1939)

Silent films I’ve yet to see:

• The Pleasure Garden (1925)

• The Mountain Eagle (1926)

• The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)

• The Ring (1927)

• Downhill (1927)

• The Farmer's Wife (1928)

• Easy Virtue (1928)

• Champagne (1928)

• The Manxman (1929)

Update: From this conversation over at Reddit, the recommendations for next on my Hitchcock-viewing list should be:

• Jamaica Inn

• Saboteur

• Secret Agent

• Stage Fright

• The Lodger

• The Wrong Man

• The Farmer’s Wife

• Blackmail

• I Confess