The House on Telegraph Hill

Directed by Robert Wise and adapted from Dana Lyon's novel, this film noir was the second film Wise made that year, the other being the science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. Viktoria, a Polish survivor of Bergen-Belsen, assumes the identity of a fellow prisoner who died in the camp in order to reach America. In San Francisco she meets her dead friend's young son and the boy's guardian, marries the man after a brief courtship, and moves into his mansion on Telegraph Hill. Unsettling things begin to surface: her husband's reluctance toward intimacy, the governess's unusual relationship with him, rooms she is not allowed to enter. She eventually discovers he killed the boy's aunt for the estate and is now poisoning the child. The mansion's exterior was created by building false facades around a real San Francisco building and combining them with matte work, while the runaway car scene was shot on the actual Telegraph Hill. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction. The set produced a story of its own: co stars Valentina Cortese and Richard Basehart met during the shoot, fell in love, and married the year it was released. Who it's for: Admirers of classic film noir and of postwar identity themes. Who it's not for: Not for viewers wanting a brisk pace, since this is a mansion mystery that builds its tension slowly.