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.
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.