Rating: 
Summary: Hitch called it a 'disaster': he was wrong.
Review: 'Number Seventeen' offers early proof of Hitchcock's mastery of, and thriving in, confined spaces. The first two-thirds of the film takes place in an abandoned townhouse, whose physical and atmospheric character - its vast emptiness, with corpses and killers lurking in the shadows; its three-storey staircase on which the events take place, giant silhouettes flashing on the wall; its maze-like landings and rooms concealing unexpected surprises; its rotting woodwork, threatening to collapse the whole house; its forbiddingly geometric exteriors - has much more presence than the atrocious actors, prattling on with some nonsense about stolen diamonds in a plot that was obviously based on a stilted, but popular play.The film begins with one of those bravura silent Expressionist sequences Hitchcock was so fond of in his early films. On a blustery night, our first image is of a stray hat blowing into the screen, eventually followed by its owner, the film's enigmatic hero. He stops at the grounds of a large house, with an ancient 'For Sale' sign; curious, he enters. The half-comic, half-terrifying Grand Guignol that follows, intercutting shadows, candles, mysterious strangers, doors opening and shutting, slow creeps up staircases, is extraordinary. Even furing the interminable dialogue scenes that follow, Hitch overcomes boredome with brusque but witty editing and compositions. There is one more terrific set-piece indoors, when the hero and the nominal heroine are tied by villains to a landing banister at the top of the house, which suddenly collapses. You can tell Hitch is itching to get out for some fresh air, though, and jumps at the chance to follow the crooks on their getaway train. Here begins one of the greatest chase sequences in the cinema. The hero is pushed off the train, commandeers a coach full of passengers and at lightening speed, chases the train across country. Due to some bumbling and accidents.., the train has lost its driver and is hurtling towards destruction. The crosscutting of the two interrelated movements, and the mix of cinematic formalism and 'human-interest' stories, is breathtaking. And, brilliantly, it doesn't end there...
Rating:
Summary: Hitch called it a 'disaster': he was wrong.
Review: 'Number Seventeen' offers early proof of Hitchcock's mastery of, and thriving in, confined spaces. The first two-thirds of the film takes place in an abandoned townhouse, whose physical and atmospheric character - its vast emptiness, with corpses and killers lurking in the shadows; its three-storey staircase on which the events take place, giant silhouettes flashing on the wall; its maze-like landings and rooms concealing unexpected surprises; its rotting woodwork, threatening to collapse the whole house; its forbiddingly geometric exteriors - has much more presence than the atrocious actors, prattling on with some nonsense about stolen diamonds in a plot that was obviously based on a stilted, but popular play. The film begins with one of those bravura silent Expressionist sequences Hitchcock was so fond of in his early films. On a blustery night, our first image is of a stray hat blowing into the screen, eventually followed by its owner, the film's enigmatic hero. He stops at the grounds of a large house, with an ancient 'For Sale' sign; curious, he enters. The half-comic, half-terrifying Grand Guignol that follows, intercutting shadows, candles, mysterious strangers, doors opening and shutting, slow creeps up staircases, is extraordinary. Even furing the interminable dialogue scenes that follow, Hitch overcomes boredome with brusque but witty editing and compositions. There is one more terrific set-piece indoors, when the hero and the nominal heroine are tied by villains to a landing banister at the top of the house, which suddenly collapses. You can tell Hitch is itching to get out for some fresh air, though, and jumps at the chance to follow the crooks on their getaway train. Here begins one of the greatest chase sequences in the cinema. The hero is pushed off the train, commandeers a coach full of passengers and at lightening speed, chases the train across country. Due to some bumbling and accidents.., the train has lost its driver and is hurtling towards destruction. The crosscutting of the two interrelated movements, and the mix of cinematic formalism and 'human-interest' stories, is breathtaking. And, brilliantly, it doesn't end there...
Rating:
Summary: stunning chiller
Review: A stunning chiller, Hitchcock's NUMBER SEVENTEEN is a suspenseful thriller filled with great performances and great scenes. A dead body in a deserted house, found with handcuffs and a gun in his pocket, suddenly disappears. Weird people meet in a deserted haunted house at midnight. Gunshots in the dark. Ghostly white clutching hands. A strange cockney. A deaf and dumb woman who speaks. A diamond necklace found in a water-closet. All these strange events happen in the timeframe of a few short hours, without any reason or warning. Hitchcock draws on all the tricks of the trade in this beautifully-constructed thriller, featuring Leon M. Lion, Anne Grey, Ann Casson, John Stuart, Donald Calthrop, Barry Jones, Garry Marsh, Henry Caine and Herbert Langley.
Rating: 
Summary: Good and Worth Seeing, but Not his Best.
Review: Actually, this movie deserves more than two stars but less than three. This is quite an enjoyable movie but small details kept it from beind a compleate three or 3 1/2 stars. First of all(although as the movie progressed it got a lot better), It is a tad bit difficult to make out what Ben (Leon M. Lion) is saing. Still this got better and I must say that Lion's character is hilarious! Second of all the movie is a bit hard to follow. It took several veiwings for me to understand it all, and there is still one thing that bothers me about it. Where did the young girl dissappear to at the very end of the movie? I don't know why that bothers me but it does a little. Though it is easy for me to ignore little details like this and enjoy a good movie. The special effects that bothered some people didn't bother me. I thought it was good for the time it was made even if I could tell how they did it. My advice is that if you get the chance watch it and don't worry about small details that don't exactly fit together.
Rating: 
Summary: DON'T ORDER THIS TERRIBLE PACKAGE OF GREAT MOVIES!
Review: Having seen all these superb Hitchcock films before, I was expecting to enjoy the wonder of DVD viewing to enhance the next times around. No go -- owing to poor encoding problems and horrible packaging from the producers (resulting in ALL of the discs coming off their spindles and perhaps being the culprit behing tiny surface scratches), only one of the pictures was even viewable. A gigantic waste of money. Go ahead and order if you must, but be prepared for the hassle of sending it right back to Amazon.
Rating:
Summary: A+ for content. F- for quality
Review: I bought this set and was disappointed. The chapter selection isn't user friendly. The bonus trivia game isn't anything to write home about. And lastly, the picture and sound quality are bad. Some scenes are blurry and the dialogue is hard to decipher at times. Close caption doesn't work on any of the DVD's. Please wait for Criterion or another quality company to release these movies remastered. Criterion did an excellent job on both 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. Both are pricey, but well worth the money. This set is not.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth seeing
Review: I liked this film. While there are some weakness, particularly the final chase scene which was obviously a train set, overall the movie is quite good.
The story focuses around a stolen necklace, and a series of colourful characters, including a cockney who was a scene stealer, a deaf mute woman, a rather nosy lead actor and a number of "bad guys". Well worth watching, particularly if you keep in mind that this film is over 70 years old, and still holds its own
Rating:
Summary: Yes, but ....
Review: I love Hitchcock, but .... The big disappointment in this set is that all of the movies look like they were copied from old videotapes -- they're out of focus and have an amazing number of dropouts, flashes, and flickers. Save your money. Tape them from late night cable.
Rating:
Summary: DVDs won't play
Review: Like the other reviewer, I could not get any of the disks in the set to play. I returned the set to the store (OK, I confess, I didn't buy them from Amazon) and they were able to play one on their machine. They refunded me anyhow. I emailed Madacy and they said they would send me another set, but nothing has shown up after three weeks. I'll avoid this distributor in the future.
Rating:
Summary: More Madacy Entertainment trash...
Review: Madacy appears to have quite a history of producing low quality transfers from film to DVD. All one needs to do is look at other Amazon reviews (look at some of the Charlie Chaplin DVD reviews). I was extemely disappointed with this DVD set and wished I could get back my money. It was a complete waste of money. We're lucky that Amazon has the ability to review these so others don't waste their hard-earned money also. Also fortunate that Amazon has technical info so we can see who has produced the DVD's.
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