Watch The House on Telegraph Hill For Free

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

(Flash Review)Sharing many similarities to Hitchcock's Suspicion as well as Notorious, this was a beautifully shot film about a woman who assumes the identity of a friend who died while they were both in a NAZI concentration camp. The deceased woman had a son who inherited a large wealth of money from a death in the family. The imposter woman plays the role of mother, believable as the true mother was away for many years, along with trustees who live in the house caring for the boy who never met the true mother. Various parties jockey for the family wealth in a manner of ways, creating much distrust and suspicion. There are many good tense moments, clues to uncover and plot surprises. Well- paced, well-edited and smart cinematography with great rich black & white film stock.

The House On Telegraph Hill is both the title of this film and the goal of refugee Valentina Cortese. As a survivor from a concentration camp she wants out of Europe and life in America. So she takes the identity of a friend who died there who happened to be Polish nobility and who married into a wealthy American family from San Francisco. When she arrives in America who is to greet her but a cousin-in-law and guardian to her 'son' Gordon Gebbert. Richard Basehart is in that role and after some hesitation puts the moves on Cortese and they marry. That should cinch her citizenship in America. Things don't seem right for Cortese and not just the fact she's not who she says she is. There's a housekeeper played by Fay Baker who takes an intense dislike to her and also the fact that she's obsessed with Gebbert almost regarding him as her own. Basehart starts acting strange as well. Her only friend is William Lundigan who was a major in the army and whom she dealt with coincidentally, a little too coincidentally for my taste in the displaced persons camp after World War II.That and the fact that an incredibly stupid error on one of the protagonists parts trips up the scheme are what bars The House On Telegraph Hill. Making up for that are good performances from Cortese and Basehart who overcome story and script deficiencies. The film did get an Oscar nomination for Black and White Art&Set Direction and that is the film's other asset.The film seems to have been earmarked for Ingrid Bergman, but she was in Italian exile when The House On Telegraph Hill was being made. In any event it was a gain for Valentina Cortese who made the most of a performance in this film.

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.

This was one of several more or less ho-hum features that Robert Wise directed between The Set-Up and Somebody Up There Likes Me. In some ways it's a prototype of Dial M For Murder with a would-be murder victim wife (Valentina Cortese) turning to family friend (William Lundigan) when she suspects her husband (Richard Basehart) is attempting to administer poison where it will do the most good. Blended to this is the 'Captive Heart' element in which a desperate person steals the identity of a dead person in wartime (a gimmick also used by novelist Cornell Woolrich/William Irish to great effect). Cortese is effective as the protagonist who, in stealing the identity of a fellow inmate of Belsen, puts herself in line for a fortune which Richard Basehart has schemed to make his own. Although a decent enough actor Basehart lacked charisma as did the third lead William Lundigan whose range extended from A to about F. Despite this Wise turned in a fairly gripping semi-noir that's certainly worth a look.