- Robert Wise's The House on Telegraph Hill is a puzzling film noir that dabbles in a little of everything. Its omnipresent narration, the abundant location filming, and the fact that we meet its main character Victoria (Valentina Cortese) in a concentration camp suggest that this is will be a serious, possibly even non-fictional story. Even the film's title recalls The House on 92nd Street, one of the most famous documentary-style noirs. But then the story veers into some distinctly Hitchcockian territory by introducing a dour housekeeper (Fay Baker) and chiaroscuro-lit mansion borrowed all-too-directly from Rebecca, not to mention a husband (Richard Basehart) who may or may not be attempting murder by suspicious beverage, ala Notorious or Suspicion. At least it's good to see that some filmmakers emulated Hitchcock in the middle of his career, too.
- Our first clue that this may not be a true story arrives when Victoria adopts the identity of her recently departed friend Karin (Natasha Lytess) so that she can live richly with an Aunt Sophia in America. Tough to imagine any real person recording that dubious decision in their memoirs, but Victoria's been through enough hardship in a Polish concentration camp that maybe we can let it slide. Although she stumbles through her stolen identity the first time in front of a military officer named Marc (William Lundigan), the borrowed clothes begin to fit more naturally by the time she meets Alan (Basehart), who is the closest thing the recently departed Aunt had to an heir. Is it weird that Alan and Marc are old school chums? Small world, I guess. At any rate, Victoria soon marries Alan, and she's pretty honest about the fact that she's doing so to make it easier for her to stay in America.
- All of this lying doesn't seem to bother Victoria much until she finally meets Karin's young son Christopher (Gordon Gebert). Suddenly, the thought of being called "Mom" compounded by evil glares from both the housekeeper Margaret and Aunt Sophia's intimidating painted visage begin to weigh on her conscience. There's also the small matter of an unexplained half-exploded playhouse in the backyard and a case of failed automobile brakes that end in a humorously anticlimactic crash. Is the ever-somber Alan rather ineptly trying to kill Victoria and Christopher so that he can get the inheritance? Is Margaret in on it, too? Victoria tries to confide in the overly attentive Marc, but most everyone is content to assume that Victoria's tough time in the war is behind her apparent paranoia.
- But actually, she's right about Alan! It's after this revelation that I suddenly realized how much I appreciated Hitchcock's conclusion to Suspicion, even if it wasn't his first choice. Nonetheless, I find myself wishing that The House on Telegraph Hill had also borrowed Hitchcock's penchants for generating suspense or creating sympathetic characters along with several of his plot devices. By the film's end, I didn't really care which fates were meted out, so long as something interesting happened. Aside from some excellent indoor and outdoor cinematography by Lucien Ballard, who also did The Killing, there's not much else to recommend this one, and it certainly pales in comparison to Wise's brilliant noir The Set-Up. In retrospect, I suppose the film's best character is mentioned in the title.
- Based on a novel by Dana Lyon.
- David Clarke makes a brief appearance.
- Apparently, Cortese and Basehart got married after this film in real life, much to the chagrin of a certain robot on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
