Thank you to reviewers who went before. I thought I might have been missing something in "Number Seventeen", something on a grand and important scale. With a dark and mysterious set up, the film continues to introduce characters that begin to confuse the story line. The one piece of information that holds the whole thing together is the telegram detailing a stolen necklace and the identity of it's thief. Purportedly sent by a detective named Barton, director Hitchcock has his audience following a bogus Barton for pretty much the length of the movie.
All of this would have been a lot less interesting if not for some of the trademark Hitchcock conventions - the long spiraling stairway, the black cat, and the train as a center piece in the latter part of the movie. Unless I missed it, the director wisely chose not to make an appearance in this one, unless that was his outstretched hand at the top of the stairs. For all the intrigue concerning the missing diamonds, isn't it odd that no one ever got back to the dead body attached to that hand?
I'm always ready to give some leeway to players who go out of character in support of the story, but Ben (Leon M. Lion) could not have been more of a mess. Imagine testing the trigger of a gun while directed at your head, though I understand this has actually happened in real life, and not that long ago. Having him wind up with the jewels around his neck in the closing scene seems almost like an afterthought, a neat way to add humor to the ending, but without the satisfaction of an effective resolution. Sure the mystery was solved, but we had to endure a deaf and dumb woman who could speak, Doyle as Barton, and Barton as Thorndyke.
Fans of early Hitchcock concede that he had done better films prior to this one, even as he was learning his craft - "Blackmail" (1929) and "Rich and Strange" (1931), and shortly after - "The 39 Steps" (1935) and "Sabotage" (1936). I guess "Number Seventeen" is the curiosity piece in his repertoire, completists should view it, but don't feel out of sorts if you let it pass.
All of this would have been a lot less interesting if not for some of the trademark Hitchcock conventions - the long spiraling stairway, the black cat, and the train as a center piece in the latter part of the movie. Unless I missed it, the director wisely chose not to make an appearance in this one, unless that was his outstretched hand at the top of the stairs. For all the intrigue concerning the missing diamonds, isn't it odd that no one ever got back to the dead body attached to that hand?
I'm always ready to give some leeway to players who go out of character in support of the story, but Ben (Leon M. Lion) could not have been more of a mess. Imagine testing the trigger of a gun while directed at your head, though I understand this has actually happened in real life, and not that long ago. Having him wind up with the jewels around his neck in the closing scene seems almost like an afterthought, a neat way to add humor to the ending, but without the satisfaction of an effective resolution. Sure the mystery was solved, but we had to endure a deaf and dumb woman who could speak, Doyle as Barton, and Barton as Thorndyke.
Fans of early Hitchcock concede that he had done better films prior to this one, even as he was learning his craft - "Blackmail" (1929) and "Rich and Strange" (1931), and shortly after - "The 39 Steps" (1935) and "Sabotage" (1936). I guess "Number Seventeen" is the curiosity piece in his repertoire, completists should view it, but don't feel out of sorts if you let it pass.