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Harrison's Reports (1938) - The Girl Was Young

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"The Girl Was Young" with Nova Piibeam

(Gaumont-British, February 15; time, 70 min.)

Good melodramatic entertainment. Because of the novelty of the story, the interesting plot developments, and the expert direction by Alfred Hitchcock, one's attention is held from the beginning to the end. Particularly thrilling are the closing scenes, where the heroine searches for the murderer at a hotel, her only clue being that he had a nervous is twitching of the eyes. The manner in which the breakdown of the murderer is brought about holds one in tense suspense. The background is England :—

When a well known actress is found strangled to death, the police arrest Derrick deMarney, an acquaintance of hers, who had found the body. The belt she had been strangled with belonged to a raincoat, and the police scoff at deMarney's story that his raincoat had been stolen. He escapes from the police, his one desire being to find the person who had stolen his raincoat and thus establish his innocence. He unwittingly drags into the case Nova Pilbeam, the Constable's daughter, into whose car he had jumped. At first she is reluctant to help him or to believe in him; but in a short time she realizes he was telling her the truth, and so she decides to help him. Their investigations lead them from a pub to a hobo hotel, where deMarney finds the tramp who had his coat. The tramp swears that he had not stolen it, but that it had been given to him by a man who had a peculiar twitch of the eyes. Through a package of matches, which bore the name of a certain hotel, they get their first clue. Miss Piibeam and the tramp go to the hotel, to search for the mysterious man. When the police close in on them and the case seems most hopeless, they suddenly find their man — a musician (George Curzon) in the orchestra. He hysterically admits that he had killed the actress, his wife, because he believed she had been having affairs with other men. His name cleared, deMarney declares his love for Miss Piibeam.

Josephine Tey wrote the story, and Charles Bennett, Edwin Greenwood, and Anthony Armstrong, the screen play ; Mr. Hitchcock directed and produced it. In the cast are Edward Rigby, Percy Marmount, and others.

The murder makes it unsuitable for children. Class B.

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