Two On A Guillotine

(1965) ***½

So, I didn't take JPX's advice and stay up to watch my first movie at 12:01. Instead, I got up at 4:30 this morning to kick off the festivities. I'm a bit nervous about my first review so bear with me.

This classic horror stars Connie Stevens in a dual role as Melinda Duquesne and daughter Cassie Duquesne. It also stars the legendary Cesar Romero as the illusionist Duke Duquesne and Dean Jones as Val Henderson. Duke is a famous illusionist specializing in historical death scenes. Melinda, his beautiful wife plays victim for the greusome deaths in their stage act. We are briefly introduced to the guillotine and a 2 year old Cassie at the beginning of the film. Duke is excited to be introducing the guillotine as a new feature in his act, the scene will be the death of Marie Antoinette. Suddenly we fade to black and resume several years in the future where Cassie, now in her twenties is attending her father's funeral. At the reading of his will she is told that she will inherit a whopping $300,000 (a grand sum of money back in '65) pending that she spend 7 nights in her fathers creepy old mansion. He stated that he will be attemping to return from the dead and wants his daughter present when he does.

Val, a reporter disguising himself as a realtor interested in the creepy old place follows Cassie to the house and weasels himself into her life. Immediately after entering the house they discover that the entire place has been booby trapped. A midget skelton comes sailing down from the foyer stairwell, they hear a woman's crying throughout the house and chains rattling from a mysteriously locked attic room. Two nights of surprises and mayhem get everyone on edge leading into the third night where after discovering Val's lie a distraught Cassie attempts to spend her first night alone in the house. She sees the attic room is now open for some reason, she enters it and freaks out putting in a desperate call to Val after discovering a headless corpse in the room. He reassures her that it must be fake and heads out to her rescue. Duke suddenly reappears very much alive and is obviously disallusioned thinking that Cassie is Melinda who disappeared some 20 years ago. He is determined to revive the guillotine act with Cassie as the victim bringing the film to it's final climactic scene. A performance to note is Virgina Gregg's drunken ranting as Dolly Bast the lifetime maid & companion to Duke Duquesne.

Throughout the film a little white magicians rabbit appears in the mansion conveniently knocking over things and adding to the jitters of the already uneasy guests. Each time he appears a quirky little recorder tune is played for our benefit. The first time I heard it a flood of memories from this film, as viewed through my child's eyes many channel 56 creature double features ago came raging back. It was extremely creepy back then and I was pleasantly pleased to find it retained it's aire of mystery over the years. Glad I kicked off with this classic.