Numéro 17

The picture deals with a deserted house in London as scenario where we find a suspecting hobo (Leon Lion , film producer and he played similar role at stage) , a young girl called Nora (Grey), a detective and a gang of thieves involving the robbery of a necklace . This early British film (shot before ¨39 steps¨) contains humor , tension , action with superb ending pursuit and results to be quite entertaining . It's a comical thriller with parody elements and suspense appears threatening and lurking in every stairs , corridor , hallway and rooms . The movie gets a Germanic expressionist atmosphere in lights and shades creating dark scenarios . Runtime is short-time for that reason is quickly seen ; one hour , approximately . As the famous interview Truffaut-Hitchcock , he said this film was a disaster , he contracted several cats for shooting scenes at home but they wander and was impossible to control them for its numerous proprietaries . The film has various Hitchcock touches as well as the ¨McGuffin¨ , this time seem to be the robbed necklace ; furthermore , the overlong and exciting chase sequence of a train and a bus realized with a maquettes and miniatures . Thirty four years later , Hitchcock will repeat bus pursuit in ¨Torn curtain¨ . His screenwriter Alma Reville ,Hitchcock's wife , wrote a confusing and no well developed screenplay . The following Hitchcock film would be his first great success :¨The man who knew too much¨.

That is sad because Alfred Hitchcock was/is one of the greatest and most influential directors of all time. None of his films seen(there are still some to go) are truly awful films but he did make some disappointments. And Number Seventeen is one of them, of Hitchcock's films it is in my bottom 3 along with Juno and the Paycock and Jamaica Inn. But it is a little better than those two, because it actually does feel like Hitchcock, but unfortunately not Hitchcock at his best. The best thing is definitely the climatic train chase sequence, it is very Hitchcockian and is suspenseful, fast-paced and thrilling. The lighting and use of shadows are striking and there is some nice spooky atmosphere going on. Anne Grey is also quite good in her role, the only one of the cast who stands out in a good way. Everybody else in the cast has acting that comes across as stagy and overacted, the character of Ben is very annoying. The editing ranges from erratically jerky to sloppy, making Number Seventeen one of Hitchcock's least audacious films. There are some of Hitchcock's touches like the McGuffin and the final twenty minutes, but there is really the sense that his heart was not in it and that he had little interest in the film. The script has the odd bit of black humour, which is more nice rather than funny, but too much of the script is stilted. The story suffers from being convoluted, things being left underdeveloped and under-explained due to the too short length and pacing that is, especially in the first third of the film(the final twenty minutes is really where Number Seventeen really comes to life), as creaky as nearly broken floorboards. Overall, Number Seventeen is far from truly disastrous but a disappointing misfire for the Master of Suspense. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Early Alfred Hitchcock film that finds a bunch of criminals gathered at a house following a jewel robbery. Hot on their tail is a detective and as the tension mounts and suspicion begins to take a hold, it unravels that all is not as it at first seemed.

Hitchcock didn't want do do it, he got lumbered with it, and later in his career he would remark that the film was a disaster. While that statement is not exactly true, it is a bit of a mess of a film, but such is Hitchcock's standing in cinema, we can now view it and appreciate some nice touches whilst acknowledging it's an odd blend of chaos and drama. First two thirds is set in one darkened house full of shadows, suspicious characters and creaky dialogue. There's impressive expressionistic photography to enjoy, which is good since nothing makes much sense and it's so murky it's hard to follow the plotting. Then the story breaks out to become a pursue and chase thriller, where a number of vehicles enter the fray with a mix of models and footage blended together for desired exciting effect. Then on to the reveal and it's end credit time. Wrapped up neatly in just over an hour.

The good moments make it worth the watch, especially for Hitchcock fans who get a little taster of what would come from him further down the line. But it isn't essential Hitchcock viewing and ultimately the great director's displeasure with it says far more than any critical reviews can. 5/10

After seeing "Blackmail" and "Murder" I wasn't expecting very much of "Number Seventeen". I was very pleasantly surprised. It's certainly not up to the standard of Hitchcock's later work, but it's a moderately enjoyable film both in itself and for the insight it offers into Hitchcock's development as a director.

The plot is rather complex and can be a bit difficult to follow at times. But nearly every element - concept, plot, characterization, and so forth - is superior to his earlier work. There are some action scenes toward the end that are strikingly exciting for a movie from 1932. My favorite part of the movie, however, is the first third or so, where Hitchcock achieves a perfect "spooky old house" atmosphere.

If this were a long movie, I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone but Hitchcock fanatics. But it's only 63 minutes - if you can find it, take the hour and watch it. At worst, you'll learn some things about Hitchcock's developing technique. At best, you'll discover a highly enjoyable little movie.

The plot of this early Gothic/comic thriller by Hitchcock will make your head spin. It is about as convoluted as possible, with multiple cases of mistaken identity, role-switching, cons and counter-cons. A detective has gotten a lead on a very expensive necklace which has disappeared, and expects to find it, along with the perpetrators, in an old, somewhat decrepit house. A couple of innocent bystanders wander in and find one of these characters knocked unconscious, and the rest eventually begin to pour in through the front door bit by bit, or through the ceiling, as the case may be.

Eventually, the entire cast will end up in a mad chase between a runaway train carrying the bad guys and a bus commandeered by the good guys (or so it seems).

Thoough not one of Hitchcock's best early films, Number 17 is certainly amusing and contains a lot of intentional comedy that many critics seem to want to ignore, keeps a steady, if hectic, pace and boasts some pretty affective use of miniatures for the 1930s. Recommended for fans of pre-noir thrillers and British comedy.