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Released by: Warner Archive
Released on: 6/22/10
Director: William Conrad
Cast: Connie Stevens, Dean Jones, Cesar Romero
Year: 1965
The Movie:
Directed by William Conrad in 1965, Two On A Guillotine holds up well as a fairly interesting horror film that mixes up interesting amostpherics and some fun cast members even if it's a little bit on the long side for what it is.
The film begins with a great scene in which a magician named Duke Duquesne (Cesar Romero) impales a blonde woman on stage, an illusion of course, before taking his bow and heading backstage to talk to his agent about a new idea he has involving a guillotine. We learn that his wife is pregnant, and from there, we cut a few years into the future where his unborn daughter is now a fully grown woman named Cassie (Connie Stevens). When we meet her, she's attending her father's funeral where he's being buried in a glass coffin with chains wrapped around it - apparently he promised to return from the dead.
Cassie then learns that she's inherited her father's entire estate when a lawyer (John Hoyt) decides to set her down on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl and read her Duke's last will and testament. The entirety of his worldly belongings lie safely tucked away in a creepy old mansion, but in order to get them, she has to spend the night there. Thankfully, a reporter named Val Henderson (Dean Jones), who soon turns into a love interest of sorts, basically lets himself in to the house and when she doesn't kick him out, decides to hang out for while and help her out. As they start snooping through the house and its contents, dodging flying skeletons and getting startled by weird cardboard cut-outs of Cassie's dearly departed father hiding in the closet, stranger and more macabre things are underfoot, indicating that Duke may have returned from the grave after all. Ironically enough, all of this nuttiness points back to that guillotine and an accident that occurred involving it more than a few years ago.
Very similar at times to William Castle's classic The House On Haunted Hill, Two On A Guillotine still manages to put its own spin on the tried and true haunted house formula even if by today's standards it feels more like an episode of Scooby-Doo than anything else. Connie Stevens and Dean Jones are likeable enough in the lead roles. They don't really flesh out their characters with rich background histories or anything more than just simple, shallow minutia but they seem like nice people and we certainly don't wish them any ill will. Romero is great as the off-kilter magician/father. He never quite chews the scenery all that much, but comes close enough to make the role his own and the movie is all the better for it. Look for a young Richard Kiel in the funeral sequence early on in the film.
Some nice California location shooting and a fine score courtesy of composer Max Steiner (the last he would ever write for a Warner Brothers film, and his penultimate score overall) help keep the mood rich and interesting and make up for the gimmicky jump scares. Director Conrad also produced and has a small uncredited cameo in the film and the film was shot by cinematographer Sam Leavitt, the same man who lensed Peckinpah's Major Dundee along with other Golden Age of Hollywood classics like A Star Is Born and the original Cape Fear. The picture doesn't offer much in the way of original storytelling but it looks good and all involved on screen and off do a fine job with the material despite some slow parts in the first half of the picture. The film doesn't appear to have ever been released on Laserdisc or video tape (though it did receive a Dell Comics four color adaptation and has played on television periodically over the years) indicating that this Warner Archive DVD-R is its home video debut.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The black and white anamorphic widescreen transfer on this disc looks sharp and clean and shows good contrast. Some print damage is noticeable now and then though black levels are more often than not fairly strong and deep. Some shimmering is also present during playback but it's not a constant problem. There aren't any edge enhancement or compression artifacts issues to complain about and while the film doesn't appear to have been given a full blown restoration, it looks pretty decent on this DVD-R.
The English language Dolby Digital Mono sound mix on this disc is completely adequate if not particularly exceptional. Dialogue is generally very easy to follow and understand and levels are properly balanced. The high end gets a little bit shrill now and again, and there are a few instances where you might pick up on some mild distortion, but otherwise things sound fine. No alternate language options or subtitles are provided.
The disc contains only a static menu with chapter stops, though a promo spot for the Warner Archive program plays before you get to it. Aside from that, this disc is completely barebones.
The Final Word:
Despite the barebones nature of the presentation, this is a pretty decent effort from Warner Archive. Despite a few pacing problems, the movie is still a lot of fun with some memorably set pieces and a decent cast. If it's not the be all end all of horror movies, Two On A Guillotine is, if nothing else, a good slice of entertainment.