The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) - Film Locations

 

House on Telegraph Hill (1951) is a thriller about a Nazi concentration camp survivor, Victoria (Valentina Cortesa), who assumes the identity of her friend Karin who died in the camp. Victoria's family was killed by the Nazis and she has no one to go home to, so after the camp is liberated, Victoria, who has taken possession of her friend's identification papers, heads to America using Karin's identity. As Karin, Victoria finds herself living in a mansion on San Francisco's Telegraph Hill. She's now married, pretending to be the mother to a son, and the next in line to the Dernakova fortune. Things at first appear to go well for Victoria but then strange things begin to take place and Victoria doesn't know what to make of them.

The film, directed by Robert Wise, is shot in beautiful black and white with much of the filming taking place in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. The film stars Richard Basehart, Valentina Cortesa, and William Lundigan.

1541 Montgomery Street, San Francisco

Julius Castle, 1541 Montgomery Street

The mansion in the film is actually what used to be Julius Castle, a restaurant designed to look like a castle, located at 1541 Montgomery Street on Telegraph Hill. The filmmakers added on to the exterior of the building to hide the elements that would reveal the building to be a restaurant. Julius's Castle was built in 1923 by Italian-born architect Louis Mastropasqua for another Italian who immigrated to San Francisco, restaurateur Julius Roz. The attraction unfortunately closed in 2008 and the building is currently for sale. According to Preservation Nation, the restaurant has had many celebrity visitors, everyone from the likes of Sean Connery, Robert Redford, and Ginger Rogers, to the entire cast of The Empire Strikes Back.

View of San Francisco from Telegraph Hill

View of San Francisco from Telegraph Hill

Photo Credit: The Imperfect Traveller

Above is a view of San Francisco seen during the beginning of the film, when Victoria arrives in her new city. Just below that is a photograph of the city from the blog The Imperfect Traveller that was taken from Telegraph Hill. You can see there are now many more high-rise buildings in the distance, including the famous Transamerica Pyramid building, San Francisco's tallest skyscraper, which wasn't built until 1972.

San Francisco seen from The House on Telegraph Hill

In the scene below, Victoria runs into her friend Major Marc Bennett (William Lundigan) at a market located at 301 Union Street, not far from the mansion location.

Victoria stops by a market at 301 Union Street

Looking towards 301 Union St. from Montgomery St.

Victoria and Marc at the market. The NW corner of Union and Montgomery can be seen in the background.

NW corner of Union St. and Montgomery St.

Looking down Union St. towards Castle St.

Looking down Union St. towards Castle St.

Looking down Montgomery St. from Union St.

Looking down Montgomery St. from Union St.

In this next scene Victoria is seen driving away from the house on Telegraph Hill. She starts at 1541 Montgomery Street and once she starts winding down Telegraph Hill she realizes her brakes have been cut and she can't stop. She ultimately crashes at a dead end street located on Montgomery Street near Montague Place.

Victoria leaves the house at 1541 Montgomery St.

Looking down Montgomery St. from the site of the house.

Victoria heads down Lombard St. towards Grant St.

Looking down Lombard towards Grant.

Looking up Lombard from Grant.

Looking up Lombard from Grant.

Turning from Chestnut St. onto Leavenworth St.

Looking up Chestnut from Leavenworth.

Turning from Montgomery to Union.

Looking down Union towards Calhoun Terrace.

Victoria turns onto Calhoun Terrace.

Victoria heads down Montgomery St. towards Montague Place.

Montgomery St. at Montague Place.

Victoria crashes at Montgomery and Montague.

Looking down Montague Place from Montgomery.

Victoria begins to be suspicious of all the strange events taking place around her and goes to meet Marc Bennett at his office. In the scene below, she is in a taxi that is driving down Post Street towards Market Street. The taxi pulls over and Victoria gets out and runs into what used to be the Crocker Building. The Crocker Building, which survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, was demolished in the 1960s. To see what this building once looked like visit this great site, SepiaTown.

Post Street near Market Street.

Post St. at Market St. Crocker Galleria is on the right.

Victoria arrives at the Crocker building on Post St.

Post Street near Market Street.

Victoria approaches the Crocker building on Post St.

Looking down Post Street towards Market St.

Victoria meets up again with Marc at the San Francisco Yacht Club off of Marina Boulevard. In the first comparison you can see the Golden Gate Bridge and in the second comparison we get a glimpse of the Exploratorium, a "museum of science, art and human perception."

Marc meets with Victoria at the Yacht Club.

The Yacht Club off of Marina Boulevard.

Victoria and Marc at the Yacht Club.

The San Francisco Marina Yacht Harbor.

House on Telegraph Hill is available on DVD as part of the Fox Film Noir series. It is also currently available for streaming on Netflix.

Screenshots (c) Twentieth Century-Fox, present day images, except where noted, (c) 2012 Google.

Kiss Them For Me (1957) - Film Locations

The film Kiss Them For Me (1957) is a bit of a mixed bag. Although this comedy directed by Stanley Donen is weak on plot and doesn't deliver many big laughs there are still quite a few things that make this film worth watching including Cary Grant, some nice San Francisco filming locations, Ray Walston in his first film role (you know, "Mr. Hand" from Fast Times at Ridgemont High!), bombshell Jayne Mansfield, and some of the fashions.

The film is about three Navy pilots, all war heroes, who are on leave in San Francisco for four days. They are put up in a posh suite in a fine hotel and Commander Andy Crewson (Grant) plans to fill the suite with girls, booze and music. Meanwhile Lieutenant Wallace is trying to get the pilots to make speeches that will rally the homefront for the war effort but after several months in combat all the pilots want to do is have some fun - not give speeches.

The hotel where the three pilots stay is San Francisco's historic Fairmont Hotel, located at 950 Mason Street. In the next few screen comparisons below we see the pilots, Cary Grant, Ray Walston and Larry Blyden, being driven down Mason Street to the hotel entrance. On their way to the hotel they pass the Brocklebank Apartments located at 1000 Mason Street which was also a key filming location in another film that is a personal favorite, Impact (1949) starring Brian Donlevy.

Looking North down Mason Street from the Brocklebank Apartments.

Looking North down Mason Street from the 

Brocklebank Apartments as it looks today.

The taxi passes the Brocklebank Apartments.

Brocklebank Apartments, 1000 Mason Street.

Looking East down Sacramento St. from Mason St.

Brocklebank Apts on left. Fairmont Hotel on right.

The taxi arrives at the Fairmont Hotel.

The Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason Street.

Walston gets out of the taxi at the Fairmont.

Behind Walston is the Pacific-Union Club a private

social club across the street from the Fairmont Hotel.

Grant, Walston, and Blyden enter the Fairmont Hotel lobby.

The stylish Cary Grant with Suzy Parker

Just a side note: The August 2012 issue of GQ magazine has a four page spread praising the monkstrap dress shoe, so I thought it was interesting in the scene above with Grant sipping a martini on the floor with Suzy Parker, to see that he is wearing a pair of monkstrap shoes. Cary Grant never goes out of style!

A view of San Francisco from the Fairmont Hotel.

In the next scene Grant and Parker leave the Fairmont Hotel and board a trolley to a nightclub. The trolley heads away from the hotel going East down California Street but when they got off the trolley they are a few blocks Northeast from the hotel at the intersection of Powell and Washington in front of the Low Apartments building.

Grant and Parker board a trolley. Mason St. at California St.

Mason Street at California Street.

The trolley approaches the Low Apartments, 1060 Powell St.

The Low Apartments, 1060 Powell Street.

When Grant and Parker get off the trolley at the corner of Powell and Washington, it looks like they are walking across the street to the nightclub, but in reality the nightclub location is a half mile away at 498 Broadway Street.

Grant and Parker leave the trolley at Powell and Washington.

Looking up Powell St. from Washington St.

Below is the exterior of the nightclub location located at the corner of Broadway and Kearny Streets. Only the exterior of the location was used. The interior scenes were filmed on a soundstage. 

Looking up Kearny Street from Broadway.

Looking up Kearny Street from Broadway.

My first thought was that the nightclub location would have been across the street from where Grant and Parker get off the trolley, but the building that was there didn't look anything like the Club that is featured in the film, so I started looking elsewhere. As I mentioned before, the nightclub location turned out to be a half mile away from where Grant and Parker get off the trolley. 

Using the historic photographs available from the San Francisco Public Library I tried searching for old clubs and restaurants and eventually I came across an old photograph of a restaurant called "Vanessi's" (see below). Immediately when I saw the photo of Vanessi's restaurant I knew that that was the correct location for the nightclub scene. I also noticed that in the screenshot below with Grant and Parker standing in front of the Club are the numbers "49" and the address of Vanessi's happens to be "498" Broadway. See the yellow squares in the images below. Click the images to enlarge.

Grant and Parker at 498 Broadway, in front of the nightclub.

Vanessi's restaurant. 498 Broadway St, San Francisco

498 Broadway as it appears today - drastically remodeled.

In one of the last scenes of the film Grant and Parker are seen riding in the back of a taxi on their way to the shipyards. Along the way they drive down Hyde Street towards Lombard Street, the "Crookedest Street in the World," and then making a left down Lombard. In one view we can see Alcatraz Island in the distance and once they round the corner on to Lombard we get a view of Coit Tower in the background.

Looking North down Hyde Street from Lombard Street.

Alcatraz Island can be seen in the background.

Looking down Hyde Street from Lombard Street.

The taxi turns left down Lombard St. from Hyde St.

The small house at the corner of Hyde and Lombard is now gone.

The taxi heads down the crooked Lombard Street.

Coit Tower can be seen in the background.

Looking down crooked Lombard Street.

Even though the overall story for Kiss Them For Me may not be great, I still think this movie is worth watching for the reasons I mentioned before. The film is currently available for streaming on Netflix and is also available on DVD.

Your thoughts?

All contemporary images (c) 2012 Google, all screenshots (c) Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Vanessi's restaurant photograph from San Francisco Library collection.