mark.waltz
When a Polish war refugee (Valentina Cortesa) takes on a false identity to get out of a displaced person's camp after World War II ends, she gets a cushy life, but that life may be in jeopardy! You see, that new life involves the estate of a wealthy San Francisco matron, now deceased, and when Cortesa marries the guardian of her late friend's young son, she piles on the intrigue as she begins to suspect that he (Richard Basehart) and their housekeeper (Fay Baker) are trying to kill her.The house on Telegraph Hill is a spooky old San Francisco mansion that looks as if it survived the 1906 earthquake that devastated the rest of the city, but has begun to die a slow death. Cortesa may be guilty of identity theft, but her crime is minor compared to what she finds herself up against. William Lundigan plays the estate lawyer enamored of the seemingly hard as nails Cortesa, who is a nice choice being relatively unknown to American film audiences when this was made. Shots of the streets of San Francisco (especially in a scene where Cortesa's car breaks fail her) are exciting. Baker, as a more glamorous Mrs. Danvers type character, is appropriately unemotional. Basehart is both charming and non-committal, so the attitude of "Are they or aren't they?" prevails throughout.There are, of course, similarities to "Rebecca", "Gaslight" and 1950's "No Man of Her Own", but this one successfully stands up on its own.
secondtake
The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)A very solid movie with a bit of a forced hand, and something like a familiar plot in new clothes. The key innovation is that it ties the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp to a conventional American melodrama, and has the lead woman taking on the identity of her best friend in the camps. It is filmed with precision and drama all the way through, and makes a visually strong statement, as well as one with the social message that the adjustments of Nazi victims and their survivors is really hard to fathom. It kludges along a little with a narrative fix to make the information clear and fast at the start, and get us to San Francisco, 1950.The leading character, played by Italian actress Valentina Cortese (though she might well be intended to be a Polish Jew, given her situation in the camp), is very strong, a somewhat awkward leading woman but different than some of the types populating post-war movies. I liked her increasingly, and her difference (as an actress) helps cement her difference (as a character) from her American friends. She deserves our sympathy, and overall she gets it. Oddly, that element of surviving a death camp six years after the liberation of a string of them in Europe from the Nazis, becomes less and less salient, so that when the woman's duplicity is brought up toward the end, the growing male protagonist brushes it off as just one of those things. He's right, really, but the fact that the woman returns and has to pretend to be a young boy's real mother is tough going, if you consider something like the truth of it. It's convenient that the surrogate mother figure, who has apparently done a pretty good job raising the kid, is also a meanie in good Hollywood caricaturing style. The other man in the story, the one who you expect to be on our leading lady's side, turns out to be weak, duplicitous, and a bit of pretty wash by the end.Robert Wise is one of those smart directors who seems to make something unique happen no matter what the material. And the odd angles to this story, even with the inevitable outcome, make it really good.
kenjha
A concentration camp survivor assumes the identity of a wealthy woman who dies on her way to America. It doesn't get off to a great start, but gets better as it goes along. The San Francisco locations are gritty. Wise creates a terrific atmosphere and ratchets up the suspense to Hitchcockian levels. There's even a scene involving a glass of juice that is reminiscent of the glass of milk in "Suspicion," and the maid played by Baker is like Judith Anderson in "Rebecca." There are good performances from Cortese as the woman who comes to regret her get rich quick scheme and Basehart as her sinister husband; the two actors married during the filming.
JasparLamarCrabb
If Daphne Du Maurier had set REBECCA in 1950s San Francisco, it might very well resemble this uptight, highly unusual noir from Robert Wise. Valentina Cortese plays a concentration camp survivor who steals the identity of a dead woman and insinuates herself into the life of Richard Basehart (who happens also to be the guardian of the dead woman's son)...it's absurd and over-the-top but also topflight entertainment. Cortese is terrific, slowly falling apart as she realizes the mistake she's made. Basehart is fine if a bit bland...although the lighting toward the end makes him appear very menacing. Fay Baker makes a very good Mrs. Danvers-like caretaker. Wise is a fine director and he keeps things moving at a pretty brisk clip. He also stages a now classic out of control car crash with Cortese (or at least a stunt Cortese) at the wheel.
AD
