House on Telegraph Hill is a 1951 American film noir thriller directed by Robert Wise, starring Richard Basehart, Valentina Cortese, and William Lundigan.

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.

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 is pleased, however, to meet Marc Bennett again, learning he is an old schoolmate of her husband and a partner for the law firm that handles Sophia's affairs.

She escapes unharmed but contacts Marc, telling him she believes that Alan is behind the accident, since he will inherit Sophia's money if she and Chris were to die.

Parts of the film – including the runaway car scene – were shot on location in the Telegraph Hill area of San Francisco.

Long shots of the exterior of the mansion were a combination of matte paintings and studio-made facades that were erected in front of the house at 1541 Montgomery Street.

[2] When the film was released the staff at Variety magazine wrote, "This is a slow but interesting melodrama about a psychopathic killer, with San Francisco's quaint hill residential sections as background ... [with a] [s]inister mood, and heightened tensions, are well sustained, and performances by Basehart and Cortese convey the drama convincingly.

The stark black-and-white photography by Lucien Ballard, the good performances (especially by Basehart) and the intriguing plot developments kept me tuned in throughout even though it was slow going.