☆ ☆ ☆
The
House on Telegraph Hill (1951) – R. Wise
Valentina Cortese plays a Polish
concentration camp survivor who adopts the identity of a friend who died in the
camp in order to have a better life in San Francisco (the friend had told of a
rich aunt who was caring for her young son sent overseas to avoid the
Holocaust). However, she soon learns
that the aunt is dead and her attempts to connect with the orphaned son are spurned
by the lawyers for the new guardian; however, when she travels to New York, she
meets the guardian, Alan Spender (Richard Baseheart), who soon ends up
proposing to her. As a couple, they return
to San Francisco where an unfriendly governess awaits them along with the son
who soon warms to his returned “mother” (who he doesn’t remember). Pretty soon, however, Victoria/Karin
(Cortese) starts to suspect that someone is trying to murder her AND the
son. It could be the governess ... or
the husband/guardian (who stands to inherit the fortune which was left to the
son). Director Robert Wise manages the
production well but the script really lets him down. Although suspense is generated by the
possible threats against Victoria/Karin and ambiguity about whether she is just
paranoid IS created, the fact that her identity theft is simply disregarded and
has no implications for the plot at all (despite Victoria revealing that she is
not really Karin to a US Major from the liberation team) is bizarre. In other words, the film sets up a premise
that is never fulfilled in the action.
All that said, the film isn’t a bad noir melodrama.
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