Number Seventeen

Ann Casson and Leon M. Lion

Alfred Hitchcock's Number Seventeen is not one of the more esteemed features in his filmography. A 1932 comedy thriller, it is a hodgepodge of disparate elements. Hitchcock had no fond memories of it, deeming it a failure in interviews. Part of this stems from his lack of enthusiasm about the project from the get go. Number Seventeen was originally a play by mystery writer J. Jefferson Farjeons that debuted in London in 1925. The play was a vehicle for its producer and star, Leon M. Lion. Lion's character, in both play and film, is a tramp named Ben who stumbles upon stolen diamonds and a possible murder in the abandoned London townhouse he is squatting in. 

The play earned enough popularity that Farjeons spun off the character of Ben into a series of mystery novels. Now that the introduction of talkies had made a film adaptation more viable, both Farjeons and Lion were eager to cash in. It was left to Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville, to concoct a scenario more fit for the screen. The first two thirds of the film follows the action of the play in portraying an octet of characters threatening and bamboozling each other in a search for the purloined gems. The finale, invented by Hitch and his missus, cross cuts between a runaway locomotive and a crowded bus as they dash to doom. On a low budget, Hitchcock creates tense cinema using miniatures and a crescendo of editing. The shenanigans inside the townhouse offer him an opportunity for expressive shadowplay. The material is trite, but I second the emotion of William K. Everson who described the film as "vigorous". If the film had been done by anyone than Hitchcock, retrospective critics would have been struck dumb with amazement.

The comic elements of Number Seventeen have not worn as well. This is not due to Mr. Lion's efforts, his timing is impeccable, but Farjeon's dated  conception of the lumpen proletariat. The character of Ben is akin to Alfred Doolittle in Shaw's Pygmalion in its classist condescension. To give Shaw the benefit of a doubt, Pygmalion premiered in 1915 and is decidedly more progressive a play or film than Number Seventeen. None of the characters in Number Seventeen approach a second dimension and the cast is generally second rate. The plot makes little sense. At one point, a character enters by falling through a ceiling. A theatrical non-sequitur that Hitchcock turns into a surrealistic coup du cinema. What one carries from this film are not the plot or characters, but thrilling imagery and editing. Many of the motifs in Number Seventeen will reappear in the master's work later on: trains, rooftops, appearances that deceive plus handcuffs and other restraints. The print of Number Seventeen currently streaming for free on Tubi is first rate. It is a facile film, but a fun one.