The House on Telegraph Hill

House on Telegraph Hill is a 1951 American film noir starring Richard Basehart, Valentina Cortese, and William Lundigan, and directed by Robert Wise. The film received an Academy Award nomination for its art direction. Telegraph Hill is a dominant hill overlooking the water in northeast San Francisco. Plot Polish woman Viktoria Kowalska (Valentina Cortese) has lost her home and her husband in the German occupation of Poland, and is imprisoned in the concentration camp at Belsen. She befriends another prisoner, Karin Dernakova (Natasha Lytess), who dreams of reuniting with her young son Christopher (Gordon Gebert), who was sent to live in San Francisco with a wealthy aunt. Karin dies shortly before the camp can be liberated, and Viktoria, seeing a way to a better life, uses Karin's papers to assume her identity. The camp is liberated by Americans (in reality the camp was liberated by the British), and Viktoria is interviewed by Major Marc Bennett (William Lundigan), who gets her a place in a camp for people displaced by the war. She writes to Karin's Aunt Sophia in San Francisco, but receives a cable from lawyers that Sophia has died. Four years later, Viktoria (still going by the name of Karin) is able to travel to New York City, where she meets with Chris's guardian Alan Spender (Richard Basehart), a distant relative of Sophia. "Karin" intends to gain custody of "her" son, but it becomes clear that Sophia has left her fortune to Chris when he comes of age. When she realizes that Alan is attracted to her, she decides that it will be easier to stay in America if she has an American husband. She allows him to romance her, and they soon marry. Alan takes Karin to San Francisco where Chris meets his "mother" for the first time, and she settles into Sophia's Italianate mansion on Telegraph Hill, where Chris lives with Alan and his governess, Margaret (Fay Baker).