Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Musashi94 Taken separately from the rest of the film, the first half of Number Seventeen is probably the worst thing Hitchcock has ever done. The plot is so confusing that I had almost no idea what was going on. A character's supposed to be mute, so when she speaks it's supposed to be a surprise, but her supposed muteness is so poorly conveyed that I had no idea that she was supposed to be a mute. The whole reason for anyone to be there in the first place is similarly nebulous and I'm still not exactly sure why the police inspector is pursuing the criminals either.The acting is also pretty atrocious; special mention goes to Leon M. Lion who gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen in a professional motion picture. The garbled audio quality certainly doesn't help, but again going by the acting, it's probably merciful we don't get to hear all of the dialogue. The chase scene and train crash at the end is rather exciting – and the only really worthwhile part of Number Seventeen – but it's not enough to redeem the awful first half.

jacobs-greenwood You can witness elements of what will become the director's style, but overall the pace is fairly plodding and the story pretty lame and confusing. One immediately notices the experimentation with the camera, from the hand held shot at the beginning when the actor John Stuart enters the "house for let", to the many candle lit scenes as the characters mount the stairs and explore the house, to the quick cuts used later in the chase to add suspense.Additionally, the comic elements used during moments of tension foreshadow the director's later works. One shot, which he used again in The 39 Steps (1935), occurs when the two men discover the body and their screams are masked by a passing train's whistle. The suspenseful, harrowing chase, though clearly done with miniatures, is also a tried and true characteristic later associated with Hitchcock, to say nothing of the use of trains in his films in general.The story begins with "Stuart" entering an abandoned house, full of cobwebs. He soon meets another man, a rather odd cockney-accented Igor type, who says his name is Ben, and the two of them stumble upon a corpse. Rather oddly, "Stuart" is able to "control" Ben, and there are some really slow moments where not enough tension is built before the next thing happens. Plus, oftentimes what happens next is not enough of a payoff for our wait. There are also some seemly disconnected cutaways, e.g. to doors slamming etc., which show us that the great director was still finding his way in this film.Shortly thereafter, a young woman (Nora) falls through the rotted ceiling and onto the two men. She provides a clue, a telegram from her father which mentions necklace stolen by Sheldrake from a detective named Barton. Soon there is a knock at the door which "Stuart" goes to answer. After inserting a card with Number Seventeen scrawled on it, a man and a woman are revealed behind the door. They want to see the "house for let". As "Stuart" is closing the door, a second man, not connected with the man and woman, also enters.When all of them mount the stairs, "Stuart" tries to slow them so they won't discover the corpse, but Ben informs him that the body has disappeared. This leads the two men and woman, who is identified by one of the men as a deaf-mute (and looks a little like Mary Astor), to take control. They tie up "Stuart" and Nora while Ben hides in another room. Ben is then "strangled" by Sheldrake, the "corpse", who'd been hiding in the room. With far too many cuts back and forth between the prone Ben and Sheldrake, who's not sure Ben is really "out", Sheldrake removes the diamonded necklace from the loo (the director's humor was in tact back then;-) but unbeknownst to him, Ben pilfers it from him before he exits.What follows is a really poorly done fight sequence which allows Sheldrake's gang (the two men & the woman) to leave after tying up "Stuart" and Nora. A chase ensues with perhaps the most suspense the film can manage, though it feels somewhat overlong. A crash, a rescue in water, and a couple of not altogether unexpected twists end the film.

bbmtwist Although I have not seen all of Hitchcock's UK sound films, this has got to be the worst. It opens like Dreyer's VAMPYR (released the same year as this), murky doings in an old house, people coming and going, a dead body disappears, and all in silence. Then characters arrive and interact with each other. However, without any exposition and with the sound recorded so low, one can't make out what is going on or what they are saying. The accents are omnipresent, the speech is fast, there is a cockney fellow, Ben, whose every word is indecipherable. Henry Higgins would have run screaming from the theater.After half an hour of this muddled dialogue and people wandering around encountering each other, we suddenly cut to a chase between two models, one of a bus, the other of a runaway train, for another half hour, until the obligatory crash at a canal barge, a few rescues and the end title. My print ran 1:05:33.This would have fared better as a silent with numerous title cards, explaining either what we just saw and/or what we are about to see. If indeed there was a plot. Or is this a joke, pulled over our eyes by Hitch, just to see what we'd make of it. There is a hallucinatory effect over the whole project, as if we were drugged and trying to make sense out of brain fog.In any case it is a waste of time and along with JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK three years earlier, a true low in the director's oeuvre.

Rainey Dawn Leave it up to me to enjoy a quirky film like this. It's not perfect but it is certainly entertaining. I like this film - a lot. I've seen this film a few years back, forgot about it and finally ran across it in a film pack - very glad they added this one, it's good to see it again.The film is mainly in a "spooky old house" setting with wailing winds, great shadows, strange characters, a murder(?), a stolen necklace, a great chase, humor splashed about and a story that is simple but good. This is not an Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece but it's a fun one.Try to watch this film without taking it seriously - remember it's entertainment and artful in it's way (the cinematography and directing.) 9/10