The House on Telegraph Hill

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.

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.

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.

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")

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.