On N List of Movie Reviews

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Number Seventeen (1932)

Rate: 3
Viewed: 5/24

5/24: Number Seventeen may be the dumbest movie of Alfred Hitchcock's career.

Full of choppy editing, it starts out as a suspense thriller, has a muddled middle, and segues to the most laughable series of actions that takes place on a miniature set. I find it unbelievable that the characters were in a house for a while only to come out of a factory-like building that's located to the rail yard with nary a train sound beforehand.

Oh, the characters...they're silly. One is a regular guy who'll be revealed as a detective, another is a beggar who needs a place to crash, a male body lies on the floor before disappearing, a woman from the next door falls down through the roof, and a second woman claims to be deaf-mute but isn't so.

When I first saw the train, the bus, and the ferry, I was like, "Aren't they toys?" No matter how suspenseful Alfred Hitchcock tried to make the action be, I could only laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Now, I know where the "comedy" came from. Of the cast, Ann Casson is the worst as Ann while Leon M. Lion overplays his beggar role.

All in all, Alfred Hitchcock went so far to admit that Number Seventeen was a "disaster" although he did incorporate some interesting filmmaking techniques.

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