Two on a Guillotine (1965)*

I was stunned to see it had been six years since I last watched this, a decent little surprise chiller back in October of 2015. 

Not too shabby mid-60s "house of unknown surprises" horror film has Caesar Romero as a magician who accidentally kills his beautiful wife (Connie Stevens) during an ill-fated, unwise guillotine trick and suffers madness as a result. Leaving the public scene due to the inability to cope with the loss, Romero's Duquesne never recovers, his daughter going to live with an aunt in Wisconsin. When he is reported dead and buried alive in an open-faced coffin, the daughter as an adult, Cassie (also Connie Stevens) returns to attend his funeral. She is told that she must live in the home of her father seven days from midnight until dawn to receive a hefty inheritance. If she doesn't, Duquesne's money goes to his loyal servant, Dolly (Virginia Gregg) and confidante, Buzzy (Parley Baer). A series of surprises (including a skeleton flying out of a closet on anyone who turns the living room light on, a head falling out of a barrel and tumbling down the stairs, sound of a woman wailing coming out of a stereo system from a cassette player, and rooms leading one place into a totally different part of the house) await her and a young man she meets at her pops' funeral, Val Henderson (Dean Jones; quite charming and appealing). Val is actually a reporter perhaps looking for a story on the daughter of a famous magician who left the public view eventually falling in love with her (and vice versa). Duquesne claims he will perform his greatest illusion yet: returning from beyond the grave! Doesn't reinvent the wheel here and follows a familiar formula William Castle was successful in over at Columbia Pictures, "Two on a Guillotine" is the Warner Bros. alternative for fans of B&W gimmicky horror films done on the cheap. I think the film gets a lot of mileage out of the chemistry of Connie and Dean, but the plot doesn't offer anything you won't see in Strait-Jacket or Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Romero is in what constitutes a cameo, believing his daughter is his wife, also wanting to make the guillotine trick a success. Gregg as the lovestruck and heart-broken servant who loved and devoted herself to Duquesne has a big emotional scene where she pours her heart out to Cassie, while the familial reunion gets a bit weird when Romero can't differentiate wife from daughter. Macabre conclusion helps, but I think this is a bit derivative of other films without doing much to stand out on its own. Connie is a looker, though. Dean is a likable, unflappable leading man…it is no surprise he was so successful with Disney.