Two on a Guillotine

Two on a Guillotine is a 1965 American horror/thriller film produced and directed by William Conrad. The screenplay by John Kneubuhl and Henry Slesar is based on a story by Slesar. A prologue introduces the audience to John Harley Duquesne, a psychotic magician who accidentally beheads his wife Melinda with a guillotine during a performance. Twenty years later he dies, and his will requires his daughter Cassie (the mirror image of her mother) to ... more

Two on a Guillotine is a 1965 American horror/thriller film produced and directed by William Conrad. The screenplay by John Kneubuhl and Henry Slesar is based on a story by Slesar. A prologue introduces the audience to John Harley Duquesne, a psychotic magician who accidentally beheads his wife Melinda with a guillotine during a performance. Twenty years later he dies, and his will requires his daughter Cassie (the mirror image of her mother) to spend seven nights in his apparently haunted mansion in order to inherit his estate. Reporter Val Henderson offers to stay with her when he learns Duquesne promised to return in spirit form during Cassie's week-long vigil. As the days pass, the two encounter a number of spooky happenings, leading to a climax in which the not-really-dead Duquesne attempts a recreation of his guillotine trick, this time with his daughter as an unwilling assistant who hopefully won't lose her head. In his review in the New York Times, Howard Thompson called the... less