dougdoepke Hitch may have thought the movie was "terrible" (IMDB), but thanks to his visual imagination and technical skills, it's interesting to watch. The hour's really two halves. The first part is confined to a creepy upstairs house. Here Hitch's creative camera and lighting turn a static setting and bad comedy into a visual feast that thankfully entertains even as Lion's lame efforts at laughs flop. The second half is action filled. The on-rushing locomotive and heck-bent bus are bound to meet a bad end, but again Hitch's skills carry over to really novel effects. Then too, I could spot only one instance of process screen being used in an action sequence. The plot's negligible-something about a stolen necklace and who gets it first, cops or robbers. Actually, the main interest here is who are the cops and who are the robbers. It's not too clear til the end. All in all, the movie's an early preview of Hitch's mastery, even when saddled with a murky script and a lame comic. Also, his frequent collaborator, wife Alma, has a big hand in the results, and I would suspect, especially in the rapid editing.

LeonLouisRicci it has been reported that Hitch shucked this one off after it was made and didn't have anything good to say about it. The Movie does seem disjointed and clunky at times and is certainly a product of its Era. But hold on. You would be hard pressed to find another very Low-Budget Movie from the early thirties with a final Third Act so frantically edited and exciting in its use of quick cuts and miniature manipulation.It zips along with a frenetic chase between a bus and a train and finally a Docking Pier that eerily anticipates modern Film Technique. It is true that Hitchcock abandon this visceral type of fast paced thrill for more crafted Suspense and toned down displays. But here He experiments with the tools at hand and shows why He would later be called a Master. This was Playtime for Hitch at School and it shows.The first half of the Movie with its Old Dark House sensibility has its moments too. Darkly lit with creepiness and shadows lurking everywhere with some limited remarkable Action and Plot twists. It all emerges as not all that clear what is going on and who is who, but this is not serious stuff, it is just for some Fun at the Bijou.

Terrell Howell (KnightsofNi11) Before Alfred Hitchcock found his real touch he wasn't making the highest quality films around. He was making mediocre and problem filled films like Number 17, a crime thriller about a group of criminals who rendezvous at a safe house after stealing a very valuable necklace. However, a detective is on their trail, trying to bust them and reclaim the necklace.Now, to be honest, I had to use IMDb for most of that synopsis because it really is difficult to tell exactly what is going on in this film. This films is so disjointed, the plot is so convoluted, and the characters are so poorly constructed that it makes Number 17 difficult and unpleasant to follow. The editing is choppy and all over the place, jumping from one scene to the next without hardly any rhyme or reason. It's simply a mess. Also, I don't usually critique a movie on technical aspects like this, but the sound quality in Number 17 is absolutely dreadful, and it makes it really hard to understand what the characters are saying at times because of the hollow muffled quality of the dialogue.But there's a silver lining to all the disaster in this shoddy film. For one, I can't dock Hitchcock at all for making the film. Apparently, British International Pictures forced him to make this film as a punishment for the financial disaster of his previous film, East of Shanghai. Subsequently, Number 17 was the last film Hitchcock made with BIP, and he considers it one of his worst films, if not his absolute worst. So we have to cut Mr. Hitchcock a little bit of slack here.But the rest of that silver lining comes from a few of the decent moments we find amongst the muck of Number 17. When Hitchcock isn't making a film with a great plot or decent characters, he's still doing something right. Each of his early mediocre films seems to have something interesting in it in the way that Hitchcock directs. There's always some interesting nuance he's experimenting with, and that's what makes watching very early Hitchcock mildly interesting. In the case of Number 17 he is experimenting a lot with lighting and shadows. Some moments work and others don't, but the experimentation is very fascinating if you enjoy watching the evolution of Hitchcock's work.If you're a Hitchcock maniac then by all means, see Number 17 because watching Hitchcock develop as such a masterful director is very interesting. If you don't care much about the Hitchcockian evolution then there's really no reason you would want to watch this film. It's nothing special, and it's not all that great of a film. In fact, it's honestly not even good.

Petri Pelkonen A group of criminals have committed a jewel robbery.They gather in an old house.In that house is also a detective, a man called Ben and a woman called Nora.Number Seventeen (1932) is an Alfred Hitchcock film.It's based on the play by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon.The cast includes Leon M. Lion, who plays Ben.Anne Grey plays Nora.John Stuart is Barton-The Detective.Donald Calthrop is Brant.Ann Casson plays Rose Ackroyd.I found this film on a VHS from the library a little while back.Hitchcock came up with much better than this later in his career.He went on to make some of the biggest classics in movie history.This early work is very mediocre.But the movie is quite funny from time to time.Some of it may be unintentional, though.And the train sequence works.Visually the movie looks good.Just watch those shadows play in the house.Hitchcock himself stated this film being a disaster.But Hitchcock at worst isn't all that bad.