House on Telegraph Hill (1951)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Robert Wise

Writers:

Dana Lyon (novel) and
Elick Moll (writer)

Release Date:

13 May 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Mystery | Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

This is the house forbidden to every woman with a conscience, forbidden to every man with honor!

Plot:

Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder when she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.

Plot Keywords:

San Francisco | Concentration Camp | Greed | Orange Juice | Bergen Belsen

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Richard Basehart	...	Alan Spender
Valentina Cortese	...	Victoria Kowelska (as Valentina Cortesa)
William Lundigan	...	Major Marc Bennett
Fay Baker	...	Margaret
Gordon Gebert	...	Christopher
Steven Geray	...	Dr. Burkhardt
Herbert Butterfield	...	Joseph C. Callahan
Kei Thin Chung	...	Kei - Houseboy
John Burton	...	Mr. Whitmore
Katherine Meskill	...	Mrs. Whitmore
Mario Siletti	...	Tony, the Grocer
Charles Wagenheim	...	Man At Accident
David Clarke	...	Mechanic
Tamara Schee	...	Maria
Natasha Lytess	...	Karin Dernakova

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Coit Tower, San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Other actors considered for the Richard Basehart role include James Mason, Hugh Marlowe, Richard Widmark, Dana Andrews, John Lund, and Richard Conte

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In the establishing shot of the house at the beginning, the fact that the water in the bay in the background never moves indicates is it a matte painting.

Quotes:

Alan Spender: You think it's easy to kill somebody? It takes time and patience and a strong stomach.

Soundtrack:

Blue Moon

Disappointing, given the subject and cast

This is a women's picture masquerading as a film noir. It does have dark overtones but in many ways it resembles standard fare of earlier decades. Some significant miscasting is partly at fault.

Valentina Cortese was one of the most glorious stars to come to Hollywood from Europe. Clearly this is a vehicle for her. Yet, she can't salvage the routine screenplay.

We meet her at Bergen Belsen. This was a daring way to start a film that was going to have nothing to do with the War or Nazis. She isn't convincing as a Pole, but that isn't the film's main problem.

She comes to San Francisco, to another woman's family. (We see her exchange identities with another ex-prisoner at the start.) Richard Basehart does his best as the dark character she finds herself marrying. William Lundigan is fine as a family friend.

At the center of the film is an actress I'd never before heard of: Fay Baker. She has a very important role in the film and, I'm sorry to say, this actress was not up to it. She has an anodyne quality that nudges the movie further into soap opera.

Robert Wise directed. I'd love to know the story of how he went from Orson Welles's editor and a Val Lewton director to helmsman of down and dirty noir like "Born to Kill" -- and then to "The Sound of Music" and his other big-budget musicals of that later period.

Here he does a very decent job. It's beautifully photographed by Lucien Ballard, too. But it left little impression on me -- even though it's a movie I'd long wanted to catch up with.