Hylton's first screen appearance came in a 1946 programmer A Girl in a Million. She quickly moved on to minor roles in films produced by Gainsborough Studios (Jassy, When the Bough Breaks) and Ealing Studios (Holiday Camp, It Always Rains on Sunday), then in 1948 landed her largest role to date, as an escaped convict's mistress in Gainsborough's My Brother's Keeper. She was cast as one of the daughters in Ealing's very successful comedy Here Come the Huggetts, then in 1949 as Molly Reed in the Ealing Comedy Passport to Pimlico.