In 1922, Alfred Hitchcock obtained his first shot at directing for Gainsborough Pictures with the film Number 13 (or Mrs. Peabody) but due to financial difficulties, it was never completed.

However, the film's budget fell apart, and it was pulled from production after only a handful of scenes were shot.

Hitchcock rarely, if ever, spoke about his first directing project, until his biographer, Donald Spoto, asked him about life in the early twenties, and his first films.

Number 13 was written by Anita Ross, a woman employed at the Islington studio.

She claimed to have a professional association with Charlie Chaplin, according to Hitchcock, in his book-length interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (Simon and Schuster, 1967).