Number Seventeen

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Number Seventeen
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by John Maxwell
Written by Alma Reville
Rodney Ackland
Alfred Hitchcock
Based on a play by Jefferson J. Farjeon
Starring John Stuart
Anne Grey
Leon M. Lion
Donald Calthrop
Barry Jones
Ann Casson
Cinematography Jack Cox
Bryan Langley
Distributed by Wardour Films Flag of the United Kingdom
Release date(s) 1932
Running time 64 min.
Country Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom
Language English
IMDb profile

Number Seventeen is a 1932 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on a stage play by J. Jefferson Fargeon, and starring John Stuart, Anne Grey and Leon M. Lion. The film is widely regarded to be one of Hitchcock's lesser films; indeed, the filmmaker himself considered it to be "a disaster", as documented by François Truffaut in his famous interview book, Hitchcock (1962).

The film is about a group of criminals who committed a jewel robbery and put their money in an old house over a railway leading to the English Channel, the film's title being derived from the house's street number. An outsider stumbles onto this plot and intervenes with the help of a neighbour, a police officer's daughter.

Many elements of subsequent Hitchcock films, such as a large, dramatic stairway, shadows, dramatic music, and chase scenes involving a railway, are present in this film in an early form. So is the plot itself, where a seemingly-ordinary man becomes involved in intrigue in which he had originally played no role whatever but in which he is now totally immersed. The hero and heroine immediately develop a romantic attachment, as happens very often in later Hitchcock films.

After being thought in the public domain for decades, the film's rights were obtained by French media company Canal+ in 2005.

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