Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

bregund Everyone seems to like Valentina Cortese's performance, and while she's believable as a wide-eyed concentration camp survivor arriving in America, it's Richard Basehart who steals the show. I've only ever known him from his TV show in the 60s and his goofy role in La Strada, but for the duration of this film he quietly ratchets up his character from an initially charming but cool demeanor to a full-blown psychotic foaming at the mouth about making forty dollars a week, and Karin/Victoria realizes she never escaped the camp, she just traded one monster for another. Towards the end, he attaches himself to her like a barnacle. She can't even use the phone or have some alone time, which seems amusing in an age where most women would tell their husband to scram.You might think the scenes from Telegraph Hill are forced perspective, but it really is that steep, one false move and you're cartwheeling all the way down to the bay.Well, it's not Vertigo, but it does keep you on the edge of your seat. There is a happy ending, Karin/Victoria has a son to care for, a potential male suitor, and she's loaded. Not bad for a Polish country girl.

seymourblack-1 A seemingly charming man with an evil agenda, a vulnerable woman who starts to fear for her life and a creepy-looking mansion became three of the most recognisable components of a whole series of 1940s Gothic film noirs that included "Rebecca" (1940) and "Gaslight" (1944). "The House On Telegraph Hill" (1951) was based on Dana Lyon's 1948 novel "The Frightened Child" and although it incorporates many of the characteristics of its predecessors, its story of deception, murder and avarice includes enough suspense and interesting plot twists to keep it totally gripping and entertaining throughout.During the Nazi invasion of Poland in World War 11, Victoria Kowelska (Valentina Cortese) loses her family and her home before being imprisoned in Belsen concentration camp. There she befriends a frail-looking woman who, if she survives, wants to go to the United States because, before the war, her infant son Chris (Gordon Gebert) had been sent there to live with his wealthy Aunt Sophie. Sadly, her compatriot dies just days before the camp is liberated and knowing that there's nothing left for her in Poland, Victoria decides to take her friend's identity papers in the hope that she can use them to seek a better life in the United States.Victoria (now known as Karin) successfully adopts her friend's identity and after spending some time in a displaced persons' camp, travels on a refugee ship to America. In New York, she visits the firm of lawyers who had earlier notified her of Aunt Sophie's death and is informed that the old lady's estate has been left to Chris and that a man called Alan Spender (Richard Basehart) has been appointed as the estate's trustee and Chris' guardian. As she gets to know Alan better, it becomes clear that he's attracted to her and so, realising the benefits it could bring her, she agrees to marry him and the couple go to San Francisco to live in the aunt's mansion. She settles in quickly and after being introduced to Chris as his mother, gets to know him as they play ball together.Victoria's surprised when Marc Bennett (William Lundigan) visits her new home as a family friend and a member of Aunt Sophie's legal firm because they'd met previously when, as a Major in the U.S. Army, he'd interviewed her at Belsen immediately after the camp had been liberated. He's very friendly which is in stark contrast to Chris' governess Margaret (Fay Baker) who's extremely frosty and clearly resents Victoria's presence.A couple of terrifying incidents follow when Victoria comes close to falling to her death down a steep embankment after she tumbles through a hole in Chris' playhouse and then later crashes the family car after the brakes fail. The circumstances lead her to believe that Alan and Margaret are trying to kill both her and Chris and then, when she discovers some documents that point to Alan's involvement in Aunt Sophie's death, she shares her suspicions with Marc, but this doesn't bring an end to her ordeal.This movie's story is narrated in flashback by Victoria who's an extremely sympathetic character but also an impostor and identity thief who practises a deception in order to acquire wealth and a lifestyle to which she isn't entitled. These shades of grey in her character distinguish her from the usual women-in-danger in the preceding melodramas of this kind who were typically innocent victims. Fortunately, Valentina Cortese, in a very capable performance, brings out all of her character's subtleties and conveys her fear without ever going over-the-top. Richard Basehart is also very convincing in displaying the various facets of Alan's nature as he vacillates between charming, devious, sinister, psychopathic and just plain acquisitive. The remaining members of the cast, with he quality of their performances. also contribute fully to the success of this worthwhile and very atmospheric movie.

mark.waltz 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.

robert-temple-1 The interesting American career of Italian actress Valentina Cortese met a high point here, in one of her best known films. The next year, she gave an even better performance in SECRET PEOPLE (1952, see my review), but here she is also excellent. Here she plays a Polish woman (whereas in SECRET PEOPLE she is Italian), presumably based upon the theory that one foreign accent sounds like any other to the Americans, and with those exquisitely sensitive eyes she might as well be Polish, indeed from anywhere she says, because we believe her. The story commences in the grim surroundings of Belsen, where she and a woman friend are imprisoned by the Nazis. Her friend dies three days before the American liberators arrive, and Valentina assumes her identity because at least the friend has a son in America, while she has no one and nothing left, and anyway she speaks English with an Italian accent so that's OK then. This eventually leads her as a displaced person to New York, where she meets an intimidating lawyer and the sinister Richard Basehart, who is guardian of 'her' young son, who is named Chris and lives in a big mansion on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. The American Major who interrogated Valentina at Belsen turns up at a party, as American Majors do in films, especially when they are played by handsome and reliable William Lundigan, and she turns to him for help because she is becoming worried by Richard Basehart, who married her as soon as he saw her in New York, and she soon realizes it was really to secure his position in control of the large family fortune. Yes, the story is pretty far-fetched. Robert Wise does his usual superior job of directing, but this script needs more than that. Despite the fact that this film is largely set on Telegraph Hill, it is not one of those hills which is alive with the sound of music. There is a playhouse at the bottom of the garden with a big hole in the floor through which one can fall 300 feet to one's death. It has been sitting there like that for four years 'since the explosion'. For such a large and carefully-kept mansion with a Chinese butler, there is a distinct shortage of maintenance in the garden despite its impeccably cut lawn! Naturally, Valentina falls down the hole when she is cornered there by Basehart, but he grabs her hands and saves her from death. But that is only a temporary respite, for there is the poisoned orange juice to come. Oh, but between those two events, there is the brake fluid drained from the car. And you know how steep those San Francisco hills are without brake fluid. She is saved by a pile of construction sand onto which she lands when the car crashes and she is thrown out. Everything about this story is perfectly natural and happens every day. Valentina loves 'the feel of silk on my skin again' after her sufferings at Belsen, and she has a very sweet nature, but there is a creepy woman named Margaret in the house (played by the eerily forbidding Fay Baker) who is very possessive of the little boy Chris, whose only interest appears to be baseball and is played by a child actor named Gordon Gebert who has a rather annoying voice and is badly handled on screen. Robert Wise had clearly not learned the art of directing children yet. The tension mounts as we slowly climb the Telegraph Hill of this story, and the tale becomes increasingly Gothic and less and less convincing. Will Valentina, who survived Belsen, also be able to survive Basehart's machinations to do her in and have the money to himself? It is very much touch and go and I ain't sayin'.