Number Seventeen
- Leon M. Lion: Ben
- Anne Grey: The Lady Nora
- John Stuart Barton, the detective
- Donald Calthrop: Brant
- Garry Marsh: Sheldrake
- Ann Casson: Rose Ackroyd
- Henry Cane: Your father
- Berry Jones: Henry Doyle
Number Seventeen is an English film director Alfred Hitchcock in 1932, based on the eponymous play by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon. He is most likely attributable to the genre of detective grotesque.
Action
In a dark, eerie house in London, a group of characters, all related to a stolen necklace, including the jewel thieves, a tramp, a detective and a young girl meet. The confusing situation eventually leads to a chase between a train and a bus.
Background
Number Seventeen is the screen adaptation of the stage play by Joseph Jefferson Farjean. It is a commissioned work for British International Pictures, which Hitchcock took over only very reluctantly, as he had already begun at this time, two projects, the more interested him: the semi- autobiographical film last we are rich, which he then staged according to number seventeen, and the adaptation of the successful stage play London Wall by Thomas van Druyten, the then director of the Thomas Bentley undertook under the title After Office hours. Bentley had, curiously, instead of this film directed much prefer number seventeen.
Hitchcock said, was little extract from the cliché-ridden play. He finally had the idea to save the movie and at the same time outwitting the bosses in GDP by making a parody of gangster and spy films from the template. He wanted to drive all the stereotypes to the extreme and this should be so subtle that no one had noticed in the GDP executive floor as possible. Alfred and Alma Hitchcock finally wrote with screenwriter Rodney Ackland hanebüchenes a screenplay that contradicted any major drama and all logic and which was nevertheless accepted by the producer at the end.
The story contains a number of motifs, like a red thread through Hitchcock's Filmography: The MacGuffin ( here an ominous Necklace) behind which all are here and that triggers the turbulent action, a dark, eerie house, a furious chase ( the was very easily recognizable shot with model vehicles ), a man and a woman, the innocent are in danger, and between which there is a romance develops. Hitchcock plays as usual with light and shadow, with slanted camera angles and he draped tons of small details that make the film for some even after multiple viewing pleasure. Number Seventeen is Hitchcock's fourth thriller, but the first with clearly comedic impact - a genre that should stand for decades for the name Hitchcock as for any other.
The film was commercially a failure, probably because he was too klamaukhaft and illogical, and on the other hand too little pointedly as a comedy as a thriller, and especially because the movie determining chase turns out to end up being completely pointless. Hitchcock himself called the film later " a disaster " and spoke reluctantly about it. Film critic Hans -Christoph Blumenberg wrote much later on number seventeen: "A movie that you have to take against its author in protection; a film; which is far better than its reputation; one of the best English from Hitchcock's period. ".