***The Evil That Lurks- Robert Wise’s The House On Telegraph Hill

 

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

DVD Review

 

The House on Telegraph Hill, starring Richard Basehart, directed by Robert Wise, 1951

 

Yes indeed who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (women too but a man is the villain here). Especially when big money, big estate money, is in play. That money and keeping it is what drives the plot in this one, the House on Telegraph Hill (that’s in San Francisco if you want to know although evil resides elsewhere as well). But not without a few twists and turns. Which makes this Robert Wise production a cut above the average B-film noir from the 1950s.

Seems a Polish mother of a small boy was in the wrong place at the wrong time-Poland 1939 so, yes, the wrong time-and wound up in a German concentration camp. There she is sheltered and protected by another women, Karin, who knows her whole life story. The mother died a few days before the camp was liberated. Karin decided to try for the good life by pretending to be the boy’s mother. After being placed in a displaced person’s camp she was able to get to New York City and try to claim her son and his legacy.

That is where one Richard Basehart, poor relative and guardian to the boy steps in, where the evil steps in. See he wanted everything, all the estate, and had already tried do away with the child back in Frisco town. So, naturally, he married Karin to protect his interests and seal the deal. And so he brought her back to Frisco where he fully intended to (with the aid of his honey, the nanny) do her in. But bad guys cannot win against former concentration camp survivors (even if cheats) and wholesome All-American little boys (baseball gloves and all) and so he must fall, fall hard. See the film is see how this particular evil meets his match.