User reviews

I was lucky enough to see this movie on the big screen, with a full house, and it was a wonderful experience. The audience was completely enthralled, to the point of yelling out worried instructions to the onscreen characters. The acting in this film is very high-quality, and the pacing effective. I thought the footage of San Francisco (where I saw the film) was beautifully done; it really evokes the Telegraph Hill area. The director made particularly good use of the hills, as you'll see. If you like elegant suspense films like "Gaslight" and "Suspicion", you'll enjoy this one. Valentina Cortese is a very appealing heroine, and the story was made more interesting by the WWII element. The only thing I had a problem with was the fact that the two leading men looked too much alike. But that was a minor flaw in a very well-made film.

Perhaps not a noir, strictly but a very effective b/w thriller with great use of San Francisco locations. Valentina Cortesa is excellent and very believable as the lady who makes her way from the concentration camps to the house on Telegraph Hill. Richard Basehart is also very good in a complex role as her husband. But mention must also be made of William Lundigan and the terrifying Fay Baker. Even the kid is acceptable! This is a most involving and atmospheric picture, perhaps with shades of 'Notorious'. Great dialogue helps keep one involved throughout and there are certain scenes, for instance, the orange juice sequence that are positively thrilling. Excellent.

This movie begins a little like William Irish's aka Cornell Woolrich's " I married a dead man " (the novel was released well before Leisen's movie ,in 1948),the concentration camps replacing the derailment:and then a poor girl becomes an impostor in a wealthy family;then after introducing a Rebeccaesque governess,the story takes a divergent turn ,recalling sometimes "gaslight" "suspicion" (the glass of orange juice replacing the glass of milk) and "sudden fear" which would be released the following year.

That said,the movie is good,suspenseful,sometimes excellent and shows how great Robert Wise is as a director when he creates a disturbing atmosphere in an old house;he would take his skill to its absolute perfection with "the haunting" (1963) IMHO the best movie ever made about a haunted house (the remake should be carefully avoided);his talent emerges here and there: the playhouse where a wall is missing,the branch behind the curtain,the shadow on Valentina Cortese's white dress in the garage and the picture of the late old lady who seems like a judge beyond the grave ;her expressive face seems to have changed in the last pictures .Best performance comes from Richard Baseheart who shines in his last minutes on screen and the rest of the cast rises to the occasion.

Effective Gothic thriller. I especially like the set-up, where Vicki (Cortese) gains admittance to the US by impersonating a dead fellow prisoner in a WWII concentration camp . That way she not only has her own secrets, but is also no unblemished young thing, which is usually the case in these woman-in-danger films. Once in the US, however, she marries into great wealth—a dream come true—but in the process gets more than she bargained for.

A lot of the story depends on appropriate emoting. Fortunately, it's a powerhouse cast, but I especially like Fay Baker's icy nanny Margaret. She's quietly intimidating without overdoing it. Too bad she didn't get bigger roles in more movies. I can't help noting, however, that Cortese may be the only Hollywood leading lady without a perfect nose. It's a fine regal beak and I'm glad she hung on to it. I can also see why Basehart fell for her in real life.

The San Francisco locations make a good open air contrast to the dark mansion interiors that dominate the characters. I expect director Wise applied his noir skills from the great Val Lewton series of horror flicks. Also, the ending amounts to a delicious twist, both unpredictable and very well thought out. My one problem was figuring out who's related to whom since that's important to the plot. I don't know if that's the screenplay's fault or mine.

Anyway, it's an effective thriller with a fine cast and an imaginative ending, worth tuning in for.

Valentina Cortese and Richard Basehart star in "The House on Telegraph Hill," a 1951 film also starring William Lundigan. It's probable that Cortese and Basehart met during the filming of this movie, since they were married in March of 1951. Cortese plays a concentration camp survivor, Victoria Kowelska, who takes the identity of her dead friend and travels to San Francisco to claim the woman's son, who is living with an aunt, and also her inheritance. When she arrives, the aunt is deceased,and the boy is being cared for by a snippy nanny (Fay Baker). Victoria and the estate's trustee (Basehart) fall in love, marry, and live in the aunt's mansion. It soon becomes apparent from a series of mishaps that someone is trying to do away with Victoria. She finally confides in the Army officer who processed her papers (Lundigan).

Robert Wise does a good job with this suspenser, which combines some diverse elements - hidden identity, romance, shady nanny and a murder plot - though the script isn't the best. It drags in spots. Cortese is an effective actress while not being a conventional beauty; her star shone brighter in Italy, where she worked until 1993 and then retired.

"The House on Telegraph Hill" does hold the viewer throughout. It's enjoyable but nothing special.

The film "Phoenix" is based on the same story and is far superior.

A woman (Valentina Cortesa) assumes the identity of her more affluent friend who died at the Belsen camp in Germany. However the seemingly ideal life she is about to enter soon beings to have a sinister feel. Is she the only fraud? Reasonable performances from all the leads keeps the storyline, which never quite reaches its potential, interesting. The film also lead to the marriage of Valentina Cortesa to her co-star Richard Basehart - a chemistry not readily apparent in the film!

In the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, the Polish Victoria Kowelska (Valentina Cortesa) has lost her husband and family in the war. She befriends her fellow citizen Karin Dernakova (Natasha Lytess), who miss her son Chris (Gordon Gebert) that lives with her Aunt Sophie in San Francisco. Karin dies three days before the liberation forces commanded by Major Marc Bennett (William Lundigan) arrive at the camp and Victoria assumes the identity of her friend to emigrate to the United States. However, she is informed that Aunt Sophie has just died and she stays in a camp for survivors.

Four years later, she succeeds to go to the United States and meets Sophie's lawyer. She learns that Alan Spender (Richard Basehart) was assigned Chris' trustee and he invites her to travel with him to San Francisco to see Chris. Along their journey, they get married to each other and Karin has a cold reception from the housekeeper Margaret (Fay Baker) that raises Chris at the mansion on Telegraph Hill. Karin meets Major Bennett, who is a friend of Alan, in a party at home and she befriends him. Soon Karin is connected to Chris, but when she has a car accident, she suspects that Alan wants to kill Chris and her to keep the money for him. Is she paranoid?

"The House on Telegraph Hill" is an enjoyable thriller with a story of greed. The movie has an impressive scene when Victoria's car loses the break on the hills of San Francisco. The mystery is kept to the end when the truth is shown. The Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp is the place where Anne Frank died. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Terrível Suspeita" ("Terrible Suspicion")

Robert Wise directed this drama(not a haunted house thriller!) that stars Valentina Cortesa as Victoria Kowelska , a Nazi concentration camp survivor who swaps identities with her deceased friend in order to escape her dire situation. She eventually ends up in San Francisco, at the woman's home, trying to bond with the son, who is now in the custody of Alan Spender(played by Richard Basehart) with whom she falls in love. Sadly, he isn't all he seems either, and circumstances force a fateful confrontation where all secrets will be revealed. Interesting film with a compelling(if contrived) plot, and most appealing San Francisco locations, especially the beautiful title house.

Valentina Cortese and Richard Baseheart make this film together with a superb script an ace of films. Only the introduction to the story is gripping enough, the familiar situation of displaced persons in refugee camps after the war, here two ladies, one dying, the other desperate enough to do anything to take a chance. Valentina takes a chance and gets from the frying-pan into the fire, but in a completely different world - from the atrocious misery of concentration camps to webs of intrigue in the riches and luxuries of high society in California.

Robert Wise was always one of the most reliable of directors, while he never repeated himself - it's astounding how different the character of every one of his films is from all the others. Here we find ourselves in a thriller like in "The Spiral Staircase" but with more interesting human relationships, as you walk in blindness among the manoeuvring characters as much as Valentina does, and you can only suspect the worst of almost every one of them - except the real perpetrator. Only in the last scene the real drama is revealed, and the only one who understood it all from the beginning was the dead woman in the portrait, who triumphs.

It's a film of outstanding eloquence both in intrigue, dialogue, cinematography and above all direction. Even the music couldn't be better.

The House on Telegraph Hill is directed by Robert Wise and adapted for the screen by Elick Moll & Frank Partos from the novel The Frightened Child written by Dana Lyon. It stars Richard Baseheart, Valentina Cortese, William Lundigan & Fay Baker. Filmed on location primarily in the Telegraph Hill area of San Francisco, the film features photography by Lucien Ballard and a musical score directed by Alfred Newman.

Victoria Kowelska (Cortese) survives Belsen, but with her family killed by the Nazis she is all alone in the world with no identity. With her Belsen friend Karin Dernakova (Natasha Lytess) not surviving till liberation, Victoria decides to take on Karin's identity to get to America. Under the guise of being Karin, Victoria winds up in San Francisco, living in a prime mansion, married to Dernakova trustee Alan Spender (Baseheart), mother to young Chris (Gordon Gebert) and heiress to the family fortune. But the House on Telegraph Hill is home to many secrets and unanswered questions: Can Alan be trusted? Why is Margaret (Baker) the housekeeper cold towards her? What really brought about the death of the recently deceased aunt? And can she even trust her only real friend, Major Marc Bennett (Lundigan)?

Director Robert Wise was one of the most versatile men to have ever worked in cinema . He pretty much covered all genres in his long and distinguished career, here for The House on Telegraph Hill, he blends Gothic melodrama with film noir leanings. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Wheeler, DeCuir, Little & Fox), the film is certainly a lavish enough production, and for sure the story is well elaborated, but the picture as a whole is not all that it can be. For although it's rich with an eerie ambiance that's occasionally punctured by the promise of some sinister intervention, it never delivers on its promises. The suggestions and heightened tensions grab the attention, but the screenplay doesn't allow the woman in danger scenario room to grow. None of which is helped by the fact that the film opens with Victoria narrating her flashback in past-tense voice over! It's hardly a smart move by the makers that, is it? Perhaps it's wrong to judge it as being part of the group that contains, Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941), Gaslight (1940/1944) and The Spiral Staircase (1946)? But fact remains it's a long way from being half as good as any of those films.

However, there is still enough in Wise's film to keep it above average and make it a safe recommendation to fans of the "woman-in-mansion-in-peril" sub-genre. The story is well played by the principal actors. Baseheart has to play his cards close to his chest in the tricky role that requires him to keep us guessing as to if he is good or bad. That he offers no clues is testament to the good performance Baseheart gives. Italian actress Cortese binds the film together with a layered performance that contains excellent visual acting, where nervous smiles and saddened eyes tell of guilt and longing that the screenplay has sadly not let the character expand upon. Baker is a touch underwritten, but does a neat line in icy cold veneer, while Lundigan offers up a nice counterpoint as the other man in Victoria's life. Having Lucien Ballard on cinematography is a good move. Be it capturing the expansive colour vistas for Budd Boetticher & Sam Peckinpah in Westerns, or shooting in atmospherically stark black & white for the likes of John Brahm & Jacques Tourneur, Ballard showed himself to be a master photographer. Here in the brooding Dernakova mansion he deals in shadows and low lights to great tonal effect. Alfred Newman's (a record 9 time Academy Award winner) score, aided by Sol Kaplan, is very dramatic and flows freely around the house and is at one with Victoria's various emotional states.

The House on Telegraph Hill contains menacing undertones that are boosted by camera, music and acting. If only the writing was in tune with those things then we would be talking about a classic of its type. 6.5/10

A young woman who survives the concentration camp at Bergen Belsen (Valentina Cortese) assumes the identity of her friend, who died at the camp, and through the new identity inherits a mansion in San Francisco on Telegraph Hill. Thus the woman escapes the poverty of post World War II Europe but enters into a nasty and ongoing dangerous battle over control of wealth and property in San Francisco. The woman-in- distress story has Cortese marrying Richard Basehart, who manipulates everything as a means of climbing up the ladder of wealth and position which he feels he's entitled to and Cortese is potentially depriving him of. Her gradual awareness of Basehart's character are the primary focus of this movie. Also in the mix is the young son of her deceased friend and the friend's great aunt, who left the mansion to her. The photography by Lucien Ballard is terrific throughout, especially the close-ups of Basehart. The film features hilly San Francisco prominently in several location shots, but the best parts take place within the mansion and in its backyard and the dilapidated shed that's built over a cliff. Basehart, who had done an excellent turn as a ruthless techno-savvy killer in He Walked By Night (1948) carried that menace into this movie quite well.

About 10-15 minutes into the film there is a segment showing emmigrants filing into a ship to leave to America.

My parents (unknown to them until two years later) got their 15 seconds of fame. They're the man carrying an infant (me, face down-I wasn't ready for my cameo) and the woman with glasses carying two suitcases.

The ship was the SS Marine-Jumper (pretty odd name) which left Hamburg, and it arrived in New York on July 7th 1949.

The crossing was uneventful except that my mother told me she was angry with the sailors for playing catch with an orange. She hadn't eaten one since 1940.

Pretty standard woman-in-peril film raised a notch or two above the average by high production values and taut direction by Robert Wise.

Valentina Cortesa plays a woman who is released from a concentration camp and takes on the identity of a woman who died in the camp. She uses this new identity as a ticket to America, marries Richard Basehart and assumes the mother role to the son the dead woman left behind. All the while, a possessive and meddling nanny lurks in the background and resists all of Cortesa's overtures to create a happy family.

Richard Basehart was terrific as a villain. He had leading man good looks but was so good at being oily and duplicitous. There is some attempt at making the audience guess how much Cortesa's character is actually in danger from her husband (there's an inheritance involved) and how much the nanny is implicated, but only some. Mostly, the plot is straightforward, and we know Cortesa will get out of everything o.k., just not exactly how.

The film has the look of a film noir, heightened by the San Francisco atmosphere, but it's really more of a conventional suspense thriller than a true noir. It received a sole Oscar nomination for its black and white art direction, courtesy of the many-times-nominated team of Lyle Wheeler and John DeCuir (art direction) and Thomas Little and Paul S. Fox (set decoration).

Grade: B

Robert Wise was one of the greatest directors in history, but in my humble opinion he always remained somewhat underrated. Sure, he eventually got rewarded with Oscars for the widely acclaimed and commercially successful blockbusters "Sound of Music" and "West Side Story", but he made SO many more and such better movies than those.

One thing's for sure and inarguable, and that is that Wise was the most all-around and multifaceted filmmakers ever. He covered practically every genre that exists, from grisly low-budgeted horror to hi-tech advanced Science-Fiction; from sober Film-Noir to flamboyant musicals. Even more admirable, Wise was perfectly able to switch between completely opposite genres as well. In one and the same year, 1951, he helmed the monumental and gigantic Sci-Fi landmark "The Day the Earth Stood Still" as well as this modest but compelling and tense Film-Noir effort "The House on Telegraph Hill". Totally different, both excellent!

The fascinating plot, based on a novel by Dana Lyon, begins near the end of WWII in the Nazi concentration camp of Belsen. Two Polish friends, Karin and Victoria, desperately try to survive the harrowing living conditions at the camp, because Karin can emigrate to the US - more specifically to her aunt Sophie in San Francisco, where she already sent her young son to - and she promises Victoria she can come along. Alas, Karin dies a few days before their release, and Victoria sees no other solution than taking over her friend's identity. Once in America, she learns that also Aunt Sophie passed away, but she can stay at her house - on Telegraph Hill - with Alan Spender; - the custodian of "her" son Christopher who has fallen in love with her. Victoria finds it increasingly difficult to conceal she isn't the boy's real mother, but she loves him and wants to protect him. Protection also seems very necessary, as she begins to suspect that her husband intends to murder her and Christopher to inherit Aunt Sophie's fortune.

The script of "The House on Telegraph Hill" is convoluted and probably a little bit far-fetched, but it remains fascinating to follow and there isn't a dull moment throughout the entire film. Richard Basehart and Valentina Cortese are excellent as the leads, but the story also features a few intriguing supportive characters, like the mysterious nanny Margaret (Fay Baker). There isn't a lot of action, unfortunately, except for one sequence in which a sabotaged car uncontrollably races through the distinct San Franciscan streets. The accident does end rather implausibly, I must add, as I don't think you'd walk away from that unharmed. The climax is nail-bitingly tense and displays what a truly masterclass director Robert Wise, in fact, was.