Megamind
To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.
Nayan Gough
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Kaelan Mccaffrey
Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Ginger
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
lost-in-limbo
"Two on a Guillotine" is an effective little BW chiller when aiming for the scares, but when that's not the case it becomes ponderous (the budding romance between the leads) and it in end too long-winded when it finally reach it very foreseeable conclusion. Still it's entertainingly solid with able performances by the ever delightful Connie Stevens and a charming Dean Jones. They work off each other rather well and the script stays compelling within its mystery building or trivial exchanges. Some slow spots, but never that distracting.In order to inherit her recently deceased father's fortune, his only daughter (who hadn't seen her father in years after an incident during a magic trick featuring her mother in a guillotine) must stay seven nights in his mansion. If not, the fortune is split between his carer and manager. Things soon get weird, but it hard to tell if it's just games or the house is really haunted. Although he did promise to return from the dead.The plot is a typical haunted house mystery (as nothing seems quite like what it is), but it's well presented and exemplary photographed. Director William Conrad mixes successfully the playful elements (an acceptable light-hearted funny bone) with the creepy moments (where it can draw some intensity). Cesar Romero is quite good as the illusionist too. An earnest little spook drama.
calvinnme
I don't understand the low rating on this film at all. Although I can understand why people would be skeptical about a horror film starring Connie Stevens and Walt Disney leading man Dean Jones, these two really click in this one. John Harley 'Duke' Duquesne (Cesar Romero) is a magician whose wife (Connie Stevens in a dual role as wife Melinda/daughter Cassie twenty years later) is part of the act. Daughter Cassie has been living with an aunt that does not approve of her show-business parents ever since her mother disappeared when she was two. Neither father nor mother have ever tried to contact her in all of these years, and then one day she is notified of her father's death and comes to the funeral. Thus Cassie returns to L.A. first for the funeral and then to take up residence in her father's mansion for a week, which is a condition of his will in which he promises to rise from the grave within that time. If he does not, Cassie is free to move out and take possession of her inheritance. In the meantime, reporter Val Henderson (Dean Jones) has taken an interest in the story and in Cassie. Complicating matters is the fact that if Cassie for any reason leaves the mansion between midnight and dawn during these seven days then her former nursemaid and her father's long-time care-taker and her father's former agent get to split the fortune instead. Let me also mention that the fact that Duquesne retired from show business twenty years before has left the two indigent. So when Cassie starts hearing and seeing things in the wee hours, is this Duke back from the dead, is it the two secondary heirs trying to drive her out of the mansion, or something else entirely? Watch and find out.The big creepy mansion is full of tricks and traps that somewhat presage the ending, and then there's the movie's score that is about the creepiest thing I've ever heard, aptly done by Max Steiner. Take it from me, this is no mediocre six star horror film.
darklybrite
Like some others who've seen this film as children, I have fond memories of Two On a Guillotine when it played as a Friday night movie on network TV in the mid-1960s. The sight of a lifeless Cesar Romero being lowered into a grave in a glass coffin at the beginning sets the spooky tone for the rest of the story. His character, a famous magician, promised to one day perform his greatest feat of all by returning from the dead. His wife (identical to his daughter) died some years before when he botched the guillotine trick she was assisting with. Without giving anything away, a lot of the suspense is built on the anticipation of his re-materializing at any time, to the horror of his daughter. This is a movie which has many of the elements necessary for genuine horror. No spilled guts, no splatter. It works on a neater, more effective plane.
Marta
Okay, it's not as classic as "House on Haunted Hill", but it's close.Dean Jones, one of the most unappreciated actors in Hollywood, does a nice turn as the newspaperman trying to romance Connie Stevens in her inherited old horror of a mansion. There's lots of visual tricks and screaming women and surprises behind opened doors, as Connie tries to spend 7 days in the house to fulfill her dead father's will. Connie plays a dual role of mother and daughter. There's also a magician's guillotine that figures prominently in the plot. Virginia Gregg and Parley Baer play the old family retainers; Virginia is great as usual as the alcoholic housekeeper.This is a hard to find movie; no one lists it for sale, so your only chance of seeing it is to catch it on cable, more than likely late at night and in the summer. TBS and WGN have both shown it in the last few years, but they show it with several scenes cut out of it. I'd love to see this brought out in a restored widescreen version. It's a movie that's really fun to watch. UPDATE: Warner Archive now offers this film in a widescreen, restored DVD release, as of 6/22/10. Run over to their site and order it! The picture is sharp and clear, and appears to be uncut.