User Reviews

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 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¨.

Number 17 was made at a crossroads point in Alfred Hitchcock's career. After the success of crime thrillers Blackmail and Murder!, and the mediocrities of stage adaptations Juno and The Paycock and The Skin Game, he now knew where his real strength lay. Unfortunately for him, his bosses hadn't quite caught on yet, which is why his early 30s output is rather uneven. For this, his return to the crime genre, he was lumbered with another adapted play, and a plodding and cliché-ridden one at that.

However, Hitch knew full well that Number 13 was daft pot-boiler material and so, rather than attempt to take it seriously, he and his wife (and then, closest collaborator) Alma Reville stirred it up into a farcical self-parody – adding yet more clichés, camping up the villains and piling plot twists upon plot twists. Hitchcock also used the film as an arena for technical experimentation, and as such it contains a number of Hitchcock "firsts".

By this point it was becoming increasingly important in a Hitchcock picture to immediately rope the audience in with a series of attention-grabbing, dialogue-free images, and in Number 17 the opening sequence is actually the strongest piece of film-making in the whole piece. We open with an eerie, wind-blasted street scene, into which comes an anonymous man – his back to the camera. We then follow the mystery man to the front door of the titular "Number 17" and, in a single, smooth tracking shot follow him inside. It's a neat trick to bring the audience into the action, having us become the camera and discover the environment, and yet at the same time keeping the man's identity and purpose unknown.

What follows is a steady descent into the depths of farce, with exaggerated performances, sped-up fist fights and too many ridiculous plot twists and character introductions to really keep up with. In tone it borders on that of Bride of Frankenstein. A couple of nods to the cast are in order - Donald Calthrop is the archetypal upper class criminal, and Leon Lion plays the ultimate "Lord-love-a-duck" cockney rogue. Leon Lion, who also produced Number 17, was actually a playwright.

Along the way however, Hitch gets to experiment. Silly as it is, this is really the first of Hitch's adventure thrillers, what I call the clinging-to-the-side-of-trains pictures. This type of thriller – as oppose to the more domestic crime stories of Blackmail and Murder! – would make up the best part of his late 30s work and would eventually result in North by Northwest twenty-five years later. It's also the first of his films to be mostly set in one location (like the later Lifeboat, Rope and Rear Window), although this seems to be more coincidental rather than the start of a trend. On top of that it's the first time Hitch gets to play with scale models, and the beginning of his recurring association with trains. Oh, and there's even the first true MacGuffin in the form of a stolen necklace.

The trouble is, because this picture is done as a genre spoof, you can't expect any of the suspense elements to work. Number 17 may contain motifs and techniques used to great effect in, say, The 39 steps and The Lady Vanishes, but it's nowhere near as exciting as those classics. And, although it's a credit to Hitch's playful touch and self-awareness, with the exception of the occasional great line from Leon Lion Number 17 isn't really very funny. It's worth watching for anyone studying Hitchcock, as a prime example of his most experimental and innovative period, but it doesn't stand up on its own as entertainment.

One of Alfred Hitchcock's British (earlier) movies, "Number Seventeen" shows his touch in many of its interesting and creative details, and it is an entertaining film, although the plot is rather chaotic and often confusing.

The story concerns a vacant house ("number seventeen") on which several different persons converge for various reasons. Most of them are interested in one way or another with a big jewel theft that has occurred, but it is hard to figure out just what everyone is doing there, and it takes a good while before the audience finds out who everyone is and what each of the characters wants. If you watch it over again, you realize that everything does fit together pretty well, but it is quite hard to catch everything the first time through.

The somewhat confusing plot is redeemed by a lot of Hitchcock touches. The gloomy abandoned house makes possible a lot of surprises and atmospheric details, and there is also a fast-paced and suspenseful closing sequence. It's very short, just over an hour, and a lot of things happen during that time. After a rather slow beginning, it gets your attention and keeps it until the end.

"Number Seventeen" probably could have been a much better movie if the plot and characters had been developed more carefully, but it is still pretty entertaining as it is. While probably only of particular interest to those who are already Hitchcock fans, there should be enough of Hitchcock here to satisfy those who are.

One of Alfred Hitchcock's British earlies: "Number Seventeen" shows his experimentation in the area of suspense and atmosphere. The plot is shaky and frankly I didn't quite get it in the first time around but I enjoyed the fact that you never knew who anyone was, were they telling the truth?

The story involves a vacant house in which assorted characters meet up for various reasons and possibly nefarious purposes.

A jewel heist is at the core of the situation but that is just the Maguffin as it is hard to fathom why some of the characters have any good reason for being in the house.

it took me a second watching for all the information to sieve through and to come to some kind of understanding of the plot.

I loved some of the closing scenes, particularly the historic value of the English Channel crossing complete with train. Lots of amusement, I must say, at the miniature sets of trains and buses racing around. Hitch having fun with his toys comes to mind.

This is a short movie - just over an hour and packs a lot of punches. Anne Grey is stellar in her leading lady role, she retired not too long after, having failed to make it in Hollywood.

For those fans of the master, it is well worth watching, if only to see how he honed his craft.

6 out of 10

This really is far from top form for the great Alfred Hitchcock but is an interesting, sometimes exciting film with Hitchcock touches which lift it above its average origins.

It is important to remember that this is in keeping with most early talkies in appearing odd and over acted. People don't always take into account the introduction of sound meant screen acting became a whole new skill which made it hard to provide consistently good performances. Cameras with sound equipment meant directing took a backward step as cameras had to be kept more in a fixed position and actors and directors suffered new limitations. Camera shots and outdoor filming was made more difficult and sound was poor.

The 'classic' Frankenstein directed by James Whale is more over acted and has more bizarre dialogue than this, both that film and this one have enough qualities to overcome the dated nature of nearly all early talkies though.

The plot is interesting and strange but is not fully thought through. The dialogue is of mixed quality, some funny and sharp, some poor. The acting too is of mixed quality. However, there is wit, charm and some spooky and suspenseful parts throughout. Its opening is very effective indeed and I found the fight scenes amazingly dynamic and exciting despite or perhaps because of primitive techniques that had to be used.

The climactic chase scene is really thrilling and Hitch uses models brilliantly. It is like old fashioned CGI really, you can see it isn't real but used properly it works well.

Hitch didn't take it seriously and it is largely tongue in cheek with some nice humour. It is atmospherically shot with some great camera shots, moments of suspense and thrills. A good film but not the usual Hitchcock classic.

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.

During his apprentice years as a director Alfred Hitchcock took all kinds of assignments, many times directing items that originated on the stage like Juno And The Paycock. Number 17 got an increase of ten in the title, it was originally a play written by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon and when it got to Broadway in 1926 it ran for about a month with a cast you would probably not know. The play itself takes place only in the abandoned house where various folks congregate on a dark night. Several are jewel robbers, one is a detective. Just who is who is not really fully revealed until the end.

Hitchcock really liked trains, he did much better with them in The Lady Vanishes and even better than that in North By Northwest. The British film industry was a lot poorer than the American one, but the fact he's using model electric trains in his high speed climax is rather obvious.

With the exception of Barry Jones who played the off balance nuclear scientist in Seven Days To Noon, no one in the cast will be any kind of familiar to the American audience. The story which is always essential to me is really hard to follow. You might take one or two viewings and you still might not get it all right.

So what do you get if you decide to finally check out this ultra-rare early Hitchcock thriller? You get a murky plot (though with a good twist at the end), choppy editing and an all-around archaic-looking production, presented in a print so bad it's almost unviewable. There are flashes of Hitchcock's characteristic black humor, but in all honesty, this picture is ONLY for Hitchcock completists and film historians. (**)

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

For starters, I think the proper context for evaluating this film would be: 1932 thrillers. And judged against its competition, this film ain't so bad. Hitchcock overdoes the mood, and there were times when I was tired of the frightening shadows cast upon walls by unexplained light sources. Characters holding candles, for instance, would throw full-body shadows upon walls, and the movements of those shadows would be exploited for mood effect.

But the movie isn't as terrible as its cruelest critics suggest. The early thirties in England blurred distinctions between stage and screen, and the stage qualities of the film are quite strong. You have to imagine that you're watching a play, perhaps in the West End, with a cast of aging Victorian and Edwardian actors, in order to get the full context of this film.

If you are only capable of watching modern Hollywood movies, or if you can only evaluate film in the context of E.T. and MTV, then by all means stay away from this film. On the other hand, if you like early films, black and white film, silent movies, and moody thrillers from the 20s and 30s, then this film is quite good. There are unexplained details, yes, but watch the film nonetheless. It won't damage you, as other viewers have suggested. The hour of your life will not be wasted: you will have gained an understanding of the important link between film and theatre, between screen-acting and stage-acting, and you will have a more full understanding of Hitchcock's background.

Besides, I dare you not to be drawn into the plot near the middle of the film. Halfway through, you realize: Not a single one of the characters has been contextualized properly, and any one of them could be lying about their identities and reason for being in the empty house. Some have faulted this as a "problem" in storytelling -- but I would suggest that it's what creates the suspense. You are interested in the story because of the unexplained. Stop complaining, eh?

Yes, Hitchcock has seen better days. The parts preceding the train ride creak and the origin of the not-very-good-at-all play comes through all too often. This was the year that saw "Old Dark House" and "Night of the Crossroads. Whale was aiming at humor and succeeded brilliantly and Renoir's film was visually stunning. For that matter "The Bat Whispers" showed Roland West's penchant for odd angles, eye-popping miniature sets plus a wide screen back in 1930, no less! In these films the plots, motives and characters weren't clear at all but who cares? When watching a film like "North By Northwest" I don't remember why things happened, nor do I care at all. "Vertigo" is another example of this. It's the telling that counts. True, there were all the expressionistic shadows and all but Hitchcock DID spend time in Germany during the expressionist binge so this was familiar to him. The train sequence alone makes this quite worthwhile. I'd agree with Francois Truffaut on that one.

Curtis Stotlar

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

Having read some less-than-brilliant reviews about 'Number Seventeen,' an early work of Hitchcock, I was a bit tentative about how good it would actually be. However, by the end of the film, I was pleasantly surprised!

The film starts very slowly, and Hitchcock takes time to develop the characters and the setting, and to begin building the suspense. His use of shadows to heighten the emotional suspense is effective, and, though the plot is at-first very ambiguous, this serves only to keep the viewer even further intrigued.

Nothing is what it seems. There were countless twists and revelations in this film that I certainly didn't see coming, and the climactic train chase at the end of the film was absolutely superb. The use of miniature models to simulate much of the action was done well, and not at the expense of the developed suspense. This is definitely a Hitchcock film, and it predicts great things to come for this legendary director!

One of Hitchcock's very early works, the film is only an hour long. the plot is a mess, too many questions remained unanswered in the end. Sometimes you'll have no idea what the characters are actually doing. The acting is below average and has too much influence of stage acting, which is not perhaps unusual in those days.

But Hitchcock still manages to keep the viewer interested till the end with his mastery of creating suspense. Some of his cinematographic styles became trademark shots of suspense thrillers and are being used till this age. In this film Hichcock also uses abundant action sequences and also a few outdoor shots. In the end, the story may leave you clueless, but if you are a fan of Mr. Hitchcock, you might not want to leave it behind.

Hitchcock's Number Seventeen has to be his most experimental film by far and it's actually quite an enjoyable watch from a technical perspective if you can get beyond the confusing plot. The film is basically divided into to parts (2 acts almost - this movie runs just over an hour) the first taking place in a deserted house and the second being a wacky chase between a bus and a train. During the first part the use of shadows in the lighting is incredibly bold. It's reminiscent of a German Expressionist films and there are even some subtle shapes formed in the shadows possibly intended as subliminal tension builders. Editing is what shines in the second half during the chase. It's gleefully frantic and honestly makes some of Michael Bay's work seem slow. The action frantically cuts back and forth between different people and locations. So be warned: Number Seventeen strength lies in it's technical bravery - not really in anything else.

There's no chance this will ever be called a classic, though it's nowhere near as bad as it's been painted.

Whatever you do, make sure that you watch the first five minutes. Hitchcock clearly has had a lot of fun showing off the tricks of the trade that he had learned in Germany, and the film is often a delight to watch.

On the other hand, the plot is complete tripe, and it can start to grate in the middle of this short film. People get captured and freed more often than in an old Doctor Who episode. But the basic plot can't be that awful -- it has been used regularly enough in the cinema -- groups of strangers gather by accident in a deserted house and are rarely what they seem. And when did anybody worry about consistencies in the plot of a Hitchcock film? However, if you get tired of the nonsense that develops, simply fast-forward to the final, and very long, chase sequence, which is genuinely exciting (even if there's more of the capture and rescue). There's a twist, a happy ending, and a cheery laugh to round everything off, which is a trick Hitchcock didn't learn in Germany.

Other review comments here are accurate enough - slow start, somewhat confusing if you haven't at least read a short review first, decent (for the period) chase sequence toward end. Several entertaining moments, but overall you don't get to care anything about the characters. Unless you are a Hitchcock fan, this one can be skipped. The greatest entertainment in it is evaluating the techniques used as part of Hitchcock's body of work.

This might just be a problem with only me, but I tend not to be able to clearly hear some of the speech of the actors in old movies like this. It could be that the film is old or the actors don't annunciate(not sure if I spelled that right) enough. Overall, the film is like what the other reviewer said: slow at first, but once you know generally what is happening, it draws you in immediately. Also, this is one film that I demand to be remade, for it looks quite dated in some parts, even a little cheesy. Another reason is that this movie should be given a wider audience. It deserves it. The remake might have to be a bit longer, though, since I'm not sure how a modern crowd would feel about paying money to see only a 63 minute movie. In summary, see this to be entertained but prepare to be forgiving for the, shall we say, "time gap."