This just popped up in my YouTube feed, and it’s a lot of fun. Familiar situation: young innocent man suspected of murder and on the run, unwillingly aided by a pretty blonde (Hitchcock’s early favorite, Nova Pilbeam, who was also in the first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much). 1937, made in UK, recommended.
*based on A Shilling for Candles
Been awhile since I last saw it; the most memorable bits for me were the models used for some car scenes and the elaborate miniature set built for the train sequence (complete with miniature people!) The climactic dolly shot revealing the twitchy, drug-addicted killer (in black face) was also impressive. The film as a whole, imo, suffers from a lackluster leading man (Derrick de Marney) who had neither the charm nor panache of, say, Robert Donat (The Thirty-Nine Steps, 1935) or Michael Redgrave (The Lady Vanishes, 1938).
As a personal taste, I find Ms. Pilbeam unappealingly scrawny and unattractive. She was 18 when she made Y&I and I recall thinking she didn’t have the maturity to pull the part off. By contrast, she was 14 when she made her first film, Little Friend (1934) – about the effects of a divorce on a teenager – and she was excellent (she is also supposed to be good in Nine Days a Queen, 1936, which I haven’t seen). In her last feature, the spy thriller Counterblast (1948), she is completely unmemorable. Quite possibly, she was a case of an actress who rarely found roles suited to her looks and talent and ended up making a bunch of forgettable comedies and minor dramas before retiring altogether.
I liked it, since it was one of Hitchcock’s earlies “running man” plots, which he used several times (The 39 Steps, Saboteur, North by Northwest) You can see how he developed the trope.