Number 17 (1932)

☆ ☆ ½

Number 17 (1932) – A. Hitchcock

Through the murk of both picture and soundtrack, it is still possible to make out that this is an Alfred Hitchcock film.  Sort of.  The problem is that the Master seems unfocused.  He uses montage as well as he ever did – to create a spoof of “the old dark house” genre, for example – but then he leaves characters standing around in a group talking for what seems like eons.  This may be a result of the transition to sound that meant that actors needed to hover under or around hidden microphones – but Hitch had already demonstrated that he could be clever with sound (e.g., Blackmail, 1929).  Instead, the root cause of the problem is probably the underlying play based on misrepresentation and confusion of identities amongst criminals and detectives involved in the theft of a necklace.  I was confused too. Leon M. Lion is along for cockney comic relief but the major attraction is a finale which sees a bus and train rush pell-mell toward the Thames (I think) with cops on one and robbers on the other until they barrel into a ferry and the denouement begins.  Unfortunately, the whole thing is so clearly a set of models that suspension of disbelief is impossible.  But undoubtedly Hitch didn’t care; fortunately, his best pictures were still ahead of him.