Along a coastline in rural England, police Detective Barton arrives at a house, Number 17, marked for sale or rent. The door is unlocked, and he wanders in. An unknown person with a candle is wandering about and a dead body is found. When confronted, the mysterious person claims innocence of the murder. Barton, who introduces himself as Fordyce, asks the stranger about the contents of his pockets before the shadow of a hand is shown reaching for a doorknob. The stranger, who later introduces himself as Ben, a homeless derelict, searches the dead body and finds handcuffs and a pistol, which he takes.
The Detective returns from investigating weird sounds and finds the handcuffs that the stranger had left on the ground. A woman called Ms. Ackroyd is seen through shadows crawling on the roof. After falling through the roof, she is revived and cries out for her father. She explains that her father is on the roof and that they are next door in Number 15.
The bell tolls half past midnight, and the dead body has disappeared. Three people arrive at the windswept house: Brant, Nora (a deaf-mute woman) and a third person named Henry Doyle. Ben produces a pistol and accidentally shoots Barton/Fordyce in the arm. Brant produces a pistol of his own and asks Doyle to search Barton/Fordyce, Ben and Miss Rose Ackroyd. A telegram is revealed to Brant. A man named Sheldrake shows up and retrieves a diamond necklace, which he has hidden in the upper portion of a toilet. Ben causes a commotion and is locked away with Sheldrake in the toilet.
Sheldrake reaches out and appears to strangle Ben, who is only feigning unconsciousness. The supposed corpse turns out to be alive and pretends to be Sheldrake in order to fool the thieves. (He is, in fact, Rose's missing father, a police officer). Brant suggests binding Rose and Barton/Fordyce. Officer Ackroyd manages to lock away the three thieves and frees his daughter and Barton. He opens the door behind which Ben is locked away with Sheldrake and engages in a fistfight with Sheldrake.
Sheldrake wins the fistfight and frees Brant, Doyle, and Nora. Rose and Barton/Fordyce are bound again. Nora reveals that she is able to speak and says, "I'm coming back." She returns and frees Rose and Barton. Rose faints but recovers. Nora returns to the basement to allay the suspicions of the other thieves and to buy time for the rest to escape. They free Ben and Ackroyd. The thieves arrive at the railyard and board a departing freight train bound for the German States.
The train departs with Ben aboard and he stumbles onto crates of wine to consume. The thieves, after dispatching the conductor, walk to the front of the train, shoot the fireman and catch the driver as he faints. Barton, who failed to board the train before it departed, commandeers a bus and chases after the train. Ben is revealed to have the necklace. Sheldrake discovers this, and the thieves fight each other. Sheldrake claims that Doyle, is in fact, a detective posing as a thief. A chase scene occurs on the train as the thieves go after Doyle, who escapes and later handcuffs Nora. Barton’s bus races after the train. The thieves, realizing that the train is accelerating, try to find the brakes. They operate controls helplessly and notice Barton's/Fordyce's bus.
Despite the thieves' efforts, the train only accelerates, leaving them unable to escape. At the dock, the ferry arrives. As Barton watches, the train hurtles through the dock, crashes into the train on the ferry at full speed and pushes it out to sea, dragging the remaining cars into the ocean. People are rescued from the water. Possibly due to being drunk, Ben is among the last to get rescued.
Doyle tells Barton/Fordyce that he is Detective Barton. But "Fordyce”, who is the real Barton, reveals to Doyle that he's made a couple of mistakes. First, the cops weren't just after the necklace; they were also after Sheldrake. They knew that the necklace would draw Sheldrake out, and hence, that Sheldrake would surely draw Doyle out. Second, Doyle was foolish enough to impersonate a detective, and Barton, of all detectives... "The comic part of it is," Barton says, in conclusion, "I'm Barton." All of the thieves except Nora are apprehended by the police. In the final shot, Ben reveals to Nora and Barton that he has the diamond necklace.
Hitchcock returned to England from a trip to the Caribbean with a new idea for a film. He told John Maxwell about it, but Maxwell said that Walter C. Mycroft had a different project for Hitchcock: a filmed version of Joseph Farjeon's play Number Seventeen, which had already been filmed.[2] Hitchcock was unhappy with the project, as he considered the story to be riddled with cliches. He instead wished to film a version of John Van Druten's play London Wall. Director Thomas Bentley, who directed the 1932 film adaptation of London Wall titled After Office Hours, had wished to direct Number Seventeen.[3]
Hitchcock was assigned writer Rodney Ackland for the film, which was intended as a comedy-oriented thriller.[3]
Although the opening credits confirm the picture's title as Number Seventeen, much of the promotional material and many modern-day film databases refer to the film as Number 17, which was its American release title. In the 1966 book Hitchcock/Truffaut, Hitchcock called the film a "disaster."
The film makes extensive use of miniature sets, including a model train, bus and ferry.
This is one of the few Hitchcock thrillers that Hitchcock himself doesn't have a cameo in.
Reception
Many critics who may be unfamiliar with the film's comedy origins have judged Number Seventeen as a failed attempt at serious drama.[1] A reviewer for Variety wrote in August 1932: "Like the play, the story is vague and, despite its intended eeriness, unconvincing. It is asking a lot of an audience—even a picture one—to make them believe a woman accomplice of a band of thieves will fall in love at first sight with a detective and prevent his being done in by her associates." The review observed that the climactic train crash scene was "very good, but not sufficient to make it anything but a program feature."[4]
Upon the film's initial release, some audience members reacted to Number Seventeen with confusion and disappointment.[3] In the 1966 book Hitchcock/Truffaut, François Truffaut offered a similar verdict, telling Hitchcock that he had found the film "quite funny, but the story was rather confusing."
Number Seventeen continues to garner generally negative reviews; the critical consensus published by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes calls the film "highly entertaining but practically incomprehensible" and an "unsatisfactory early tongue-in-cheek comedy/suspense yarn."[5]
Copyright status and home media
Number Seventeen is copyrighted worldwide,[6][7] but it has been widely bootlegged on home video.[8] However, various licensed, restored releases have appeared on DVD disc and video-on-demand services. On December 7, 2021, the film was released on Blu-ray disc in the U.S. by Kino Lorber.[9]
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", Hitchcock became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo appearances in most of his films, and his hosting and producing the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Best Director, despite five nominations.
Young and Innocent, released in the US as The Girl Was Young, is a 1937 British crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney. Based on the 1936 novel A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, the film is about a young man on the run from a murder charge who enlists the help of a woman who must put herself at risk for his cause. An elaborately staged crane shot Hitchcock devised, which appears towards the end of the film, identifies the real murderer.
Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story It Had to Be Murder. Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr. It was screened at the 1954 Venice Film Festival.
Alma Lucy Reville, Lady Hitchcock was an English screenwriter and film editor. She was the wife of film director Alfred Hitchcock. She collaborated on scripts for her husband's films, including Shadow of a Doubt, Suspicion, and The Lady Vanishes, as well as scripts for other directors, including Henrik Galeen, Maurice Elvey, and Berthold Viertel.
Sabotage, released in the United States as The Woman Alone, is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, and John Loder. It is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel The Secret Agent, about a woman who discovers that her husband, the owner of a London movie theatre, is a terrorist agent.
Strangers on a Train is a 1951 American psychological thriller film noir produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the 1950 novel Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. It was shot in late 1950, and released by Warner Bros. on June 30, 1951, starring Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker.
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog is a 1927 British silent thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, June Tripp, Malcolm Keen and Ivor Novello. Hitchcock's third feature film, it was released on 14 February 1927 in London and on 10 June 1928 in New York City. The film is based on the 1913 novel The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes and the play Who Is He? co-written by Belloc Lowndes. Its plot concerns the hunt for a Jack the Ripper-like serial killer in London.
The Mountain Eagle is a 1926 silent drama film, and Alfred Hitchcock's second as director, following The Pleasure Garden. The film, a romantic melodrama set in Kentucky, is about a widower who jealously competes with his crippled son and a man he loathes over the affections of a schoolteacher. The film was mostly produced at the Emelka Film studios in Munich, Germany in autumn of 1925, with exterior scenes shot in the village of Obergurgl in the State of Tyrol, Austria. Production was plagued with problems, including the destruction of a village roof and Hitchcock experiencing altitude sickness. Due to producing the film in Germany, Hitchcock had more directorial freedom than he would have had in England, and he was influenced by German cinematic style and technique.
The Ring is a 1927 British silent romance film written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Carl Brisson, Lillian Hall-Davis and Ian Hunter.
Murder! is a 1930 British thriller film co-written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring and Edward Chapman. Written by Hitchcock, his wife Alma Reville and Walter C. Mycroft, it is based on the 1928 novel Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. It was Hitchcock's third all-talkie film, after Blackmail (1929) and Juno and the Paycock (1930).
The Man Who Knew Too Much is a 1934 British spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Leslie Banks and Peter Lorre, and released by Gaumont British. It was one of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of Hitchcock's British period.
The 39 Steps is a 1935 British spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. It is loosely based on the 1915 novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. It concerns a Canadian civilian in London, Richard Hannay, who becomes caught up in preventing an organisation of spies called "The 39 Steps" from stealing British military secrets. Mistakenly accused of the murder of a counter-espionage agent, Hannay goes on the run to Scotland and becomes tangled up with an attractive woman, Pamela, while hoping to stop the spy ring and clear his name.
In 1922, Alfred Hitchcock obtained his first shot at directing for Gainsborough Pictures with the film Number 13 but due to financial difficulties it was never completed.
The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, the film is about an English tourist travelling by train in continental Europe who discovers that her elderly travelling companion seems to have disappeared from the train. After her fellow passengers deny ever having seen the elderly lady, the young woman is helped by a young musicologist, the two proceeding to search the train for clues to the old lady's disappearance.
Number 17 is a 1928 German-British silent and sound crime film directed by Géza von Bolváry and starring Guy Newall, Lien Deyers, and Carl de Vogt. The English version was produced with sound. While the sound version has no audible dialog, it features a synchronized musical score with sound effects.
Joseph Jefferson Farjeon was an English crime and mystery novelist, playwright and screenwriter. His father, brother and sister also developed successful careers in the literary world. His "Ben" novels were reissued in 2015 and 2016.
The Girl is a 2012 British television film directed by Julian Jarrold, written by Gwyneth Hughes and produced by the BBC and HBO Films. The film stars Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren and Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock. It is based on Donald Spoto's 2009 book Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, which discusses the English film director Hitchcock and the women who played leading roles in his films. The Girl's title was inspired by Hitchcock's alleged nickname for Hedren.
Number 17 is a 1925 thriller play by the British writer Joseph Jefferson Farjeon.
No. 17 is a 1926 thriller novel by the British writer Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, inspired by his successful play of the same title from the previous year. Along with the play it provided inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's 1932 film Number Seventeen.
The House Opposite is a 1931 mystery crime novel by the British writer Joseph Jefferson Farjeon. It was the second in his series of novels featuring Detective Ben, following the 1926 novel Number 17. It was published by the Collins Crime Club which had been established the previous year.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
