Alfred Hitchcock's early British talkies made between 1929 and 1933 have never attracted much attention, unlike the films he made during his later years in Britain, the period between 1934 and 1939. These include classics like "The Man Who Knew Too Much", "The 39 Steps" and "The Lady Vanishes". When, therefore, the specialist movie channel Talking Pictures showed his 1932 thriller "Number Seventeen", I took the opportunity to watch it.
I won't set out the plot in any detail, as it is a complicated one. It essentially concerns a stolen diamond necklace and the efforts of a police detective to recover it and arrest the thieves. The first part of the story takes place in an empty house, the Number 17 of the title, in which the necklace has been hidden. The second part takes place on board a train on which the thieves are trying to make their getaway.
Apparently Hitchcock did not want to make this film but was ordered to do so by the studio after his previous film, "Rich and Strange", flopped at the box-office. It is perhaps unsurprising that he was later to call it a "disaster." Creative artists are not always the best judges of their own work, but I wouldn't really dissent from that judgement. It is generally described as a "comedy-thriller", a description which can often translate as "not very comic, and not very thrilling either". It was based upon a burlesque play by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, and for the benefit of American readers I should point out that in a British context the word "burlesque" does not refer to striptease but to "a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects". I have never seen Farjeon's play, but there is little about Hitchcock's treatment of the story to suggest that he was trying to caricature serious films. The best comic relief is provided by Leon M. Lion as Ben a homeless tramp who assists the police their efforts, but the rest of the storyline comes across as a failed attempt at serious drama rather than as a successful parody of it.
In his later films Hitchcock succeeded in integrating comedy into serious films- think of, say, the auction scene in "North by North-West" or the two elderly crime buffs in "Shadow of a Doubt", eagerly discussing detective novels, unsolved murder cases or the best way to commit the perfect murder, while comically unaware of the real murder mystery unfolding under their noses. In films like these, however, the comic elements come as light relief in a basically serious drama. Attempting to give the comic element equal billing with the dramatic, as he does here, does not really work. The kindest thing to say about "Number 17" is that it is an apprentice work, produced by a young director who just three years later was to produce his first great talkie, "The 39 Steps". 5/10.
I won't set out the plot in any detail, as it is a complicated one. It essentially concerns a stolen diamond necklace and the efforts of a police detective to recover it and arrest the thieves. The first part of the story takes place in an empty house, the Number 17 of the title, in which the necklace has been hidden. The second part takes place on board a train on which the thieves are trying to make their getaway.
Apparently Hitchcock did not want to make this film but was ordered to do so by the studio after his previous film, "Rich and Strange", flopped at the box-office. It is perhaps unsurprising that he was later to call it a "disaster." Creative artists are not always the best judges of their own work, but I wouldn't really dissent from that judgement. It is generally described as a "comedy-thriller", a description which can often translate as "not very comic, and not very thrilling either". It was based upon a burlesque play by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, and for the benefit of American readers I should point out that in a British context the word "burlesque" does not refer to striptease but to "a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects". I have never seen Farjeon's play, but there is little about Hitchcock's treatment of the story to suggest that he was trying to caricature serious films. The best comic relief is provided by Leon M. Lion as Ben a homeless tramp who assists the police their efforts, but the rest of the storyline comes across as a failed attempt at serious drama rather than as a successful parody of it.
In his later films Hitchcock succeeded in integrating comedy into serious films- think of, say, the auction scene in "North by North-West" or the two elderly crime buffs in "Shadow of a Doubt", eagerly discussing detective novels, unsolved murder cases or the best way to commit the perfect murder, while comically unaware of the real murder mystery unfolding under their noses. In films like these, however, the comic elements come as light relief in a basically serious drama. Attempting to give the comic element equal billing with the dramatic, as he does here, does not really work. The kindest thing to say about "Number 17" is that it is an apprentice work, produced by a young director who just three years later was to produce his first great talkie, "The 39 Steps". 5/10.