Number Seventeen gets a bad wrap from film critics and wasn't held in very high esteem by Hitchcock himself (at the time he wanted to direct a different film but was assigned to this project instead). I think it's actually underrated though, it stands head and shoulders above the director's other films from the early 1930s (EG. Murder!, The Skin Game, Rich and Strange).
The plot involves prototypical Hitchcock tropes like an outsider getting caught up in a dastardly caper and baffling plot-twists, but the scale of the story is fairly small - involving a bungled jewel robbery and the subsequent attempts of the robbers to make a clean getaway. Some of the story's details are a bit convoluted but if you get past the confusing scenes that set up who's who and what's what the rest of the film is quite the snappy little thriller. There's a conscious attempt on the writers' part to add some humour elements but I can't say I really picked up on any laughs.
The highlight is easily the runaway train climax, achieved via some detailed moderlwork and clever cutting on Hitchcock's part. The film only runs for an hour so if you're a Hitchcock fan you should easily seek it out.
DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Alfred Hitchcock, Alma Reville and Rodney Ackland. Based on a play by J. Jefferson Farjeon.
KEY ACTORS: John Stuart, Anne Grey, Donald Calthrop, Leon M. Lion
RELATED TEXTS:
- The stage play Number Seventeen.
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