“What is it Dolly? What frightened you?”
John Duquesne (Cesar Romero) is a magician who with his wife Melinda (Connie Stevens) has an act that involves tricks of a macabre nature. Reportedly Melinda has abandoned the family when their daughter Cassie was an infant. Her whereabouts are unknown. Distraught over his wife’s disappearance John sends his young daughter to her aunt’s to live. Cassie (also played by Connie Stevens) is the spiting image of her mother.
Twenty years later when John Duquesne dies Cassie returns to Los Angeles for his funeral. The service has as much flair and drama as John’s act did during his life. With theatrical flourish John has vowed to come back from the dead. At the reading of the will Cassie learns that she will inherit her father’s estate provided she stays in her father’s mansion for seven nights.
There are two other people that were in Duquesne’s life. Dolly Bast (Virginia Gregg) Cassie’s nanny when she was a baby and Buzz Sheridan (Parley Baer) Duquesne’s press agent and manager. Should Cassie not make it through the week the entire estate will be split between Dolly and Buzz.
Dean Jones is reporter Val Henderson. Upon hearing of Duquesne’s vow to return from the dead he becomes intrigued and tries to make himself indispensable. He thinks that maybe there is a story in all this. Once Cassie moves into the house strange things start to happen. The question is why. Is someone trying to drive her out to get at the inheritance? Or is John Duquesne really coming back from the dead?
"Two on a Guillotine" was released in 1965 and was directed by William Conrad. The cast is small but talented. Plus it was directed by William Conrad with music by Max Steiner. William Conrad actually does a cameo ala Hitchcock. When Val and Cassie are at the carnival in the house of mirrors, Conrad is one of the people looking at himself in a mirror.
This is another one of those movies I remember from when I was a kid. The skeleton on the wire was my favorite part. It made enough of an impression that I thought it was a color movie. It’s a great mystery with touches of horror. The title may sound hokey but the movie is well done and a great old dark house story. It is a great movie that no one knows about.