"It's as though the whole house were breathing."
William Conrad had an incredibly interesting career, and more personally speaking, he's the reason I subscribe to Warner Archive Instant. The imposing actor who made his debut in Robert Siodmak's definitive noir "The Killer's", was also the whimsical narrator of "Rocky and Bullwinkle". His voice wallpapered my youth and is one I'm more familiar with than many of my family's own. In addition to this, he was a TV director, his credit's behind the camera are numerous and include the unique final season of "77 Sunset Strip" which saw a shift in style for the popular crime drama. Despite his extensive work for the small screen, the entirety of Conrad's directing for the cinema is contained in one year and three film's. It was in seeking out one of these work's, "Brainstorm", that I entered the world of Warner Archive. A well regarded late entry into the film-noir cycle, it was a film I felt the need to track down when I was going through a period of noir immersion. Warner Archive Instant, at the time, had it offered as a streaming title, and having just bought a Roku, I subscribed to the service. William Conrad was my gateway drug to WAI (and vice-versa). Today, we look at one of those other two film's from that fruitful year of 1965, "Two on a Guillotine".
A vulture perches. A woman is bound. She is stabbed. Twice. She screams in agony. The audience cheers. The magician John Harley Duquesne (Cesar Romero) has wowed them again. After Duquesne and his assistant/ wife (Connie Stevens) take their bow's, Conrad's camera glides through the backstage activity of the very real humanity behind the Grand Guignol performance. Duquesne demonstrates the apparatus of his newest trick, a guillotine for a "Marie Antoinette" routine. The guillotine proves faulty, chopping the head from a doll.
We jump forward in time to the occasion of Duquesne's funeral (you can spot an uncredited Richard Kiel at graveside). The great magician is buried in a shackled, windowed coffin per his last request; he claimed his final act would be to return from the grave. Cassandra (also played by Connie Stevens), his daughter, leaves the ceremony in disgust as she is hounded by reporter's. We learn that Duquesne retired from performing twenty years prior, when his wife walked out on the family and disappeared. An aunt in Wisconsin raised Cassie, and she never really knew her parent's.
The reading of the will takes place in true show biz style at The Hollywood Bowl. The widescreen lens takes in the entirety of the locale, slowly pushing in on the infinitesimal figures seated on the stage. It is revealed that all $300,000 of Duquesne's estate will belong to Connie if she is able to spend seven nights at his house, where he hopes his soul shall make a return.
It's a classic old dark house set-up and it's in classic fashion that Cassie is greeted. After pushing a button, a "House on Haunted Hill" style skeleton descends through the room on a wire. Aiding her on the exploration of the estate is wisecracking Val Henderson (Dean Jones), a reporter posing as a real estate agent. Jones is intensely likeable in a Jimmy Stewart kind of way.
The first night in the house, disturbing sounds of a woman crying are heard, followed by a phone call with heavy breathing. Val eventually discovers a tape player is the source of the respiratory audio. It seems Duquesne's trick's continue on even after he lay in the grave.
Val charms his way into Cassie's life and they go to an amusement park, followed by dinner at a rockin' go-go joint with a kick ass band. They kiss in a Godardian moment of self aware cinema; the R&B that has filled the soundtrack is jarringly replaced by the lush, romantic Max Steiner score at the very instant they lock lip's. Conrad cuts forward in time to the two being intimate on the couch and Cassie grabs a "Stop/Go" pillow, mirroring the "go,go,go.." lyric's of the song heard moment's ago at the club. For a haunted house movie by a TV director, this picture is cinematically sophisticated and whip-smart.
This interlude is likewise interrupted by a jolting auditory instance- the screaming of Dolly (Virginia Gregg), Duquesne's assistant, who wanders the house and claims he appeared to her. Dolly is consumed with self loathing for allowing Duquesne to die alone. She paints a heart-rending portrait of a man haunted and driven from reality by grief over his lost wife. There's an emotional complexity to the scene's between Cassie and Dolly. Cassie develops guilt over not speaking to her father when Dolly tells her he "worshipped her". Val doesn't trust Dolly, believing her to be manipulating Cassie in order to get at the $300,000, and drives her from the house.
Cassie comes to know her parent's through her environment and the object's therein- her father's prop's, her mother's room. There's a powerful scene of her listening to the voice of her lost mother singing on tape as she wanders the music room in the way her father must have done countless times. She is the estranged child learning of her parent's and echoing them at the same time. Conrad's intelligent Panavision compositions add to the impact.
A mannequin head bearing her likeness frightens Cassie when it tumbles from a box. It is not her image though, but that of her mother. Oddly this is the second film we've reviewed in the past month with a mistaken identity mannequin head scare scene. "Crescendo" had a similar moment and the two share an interest in body doubling.
The interactions between Cassie and Val have an easy humor to them, but beyond that, there's a strange, idiosyncratic tone to many part's of the picture. There's Big Mike (Billy Curtis, who hails from one town over from me), the midget bartender, a sign for "7 Dwarf's Bourbon" framed behind his head. And then there's the rabbit. Duquesne's white rabbit makes numerous appearances, each time accompanied by a goofy, ocarina sounding melody. It's usually during scene's of seriousness and intensity, and the bunny with it's jaunty tune is a mood killer and completely tonally dissonant. Conrad must have loved the damn thing though, since he gives it the last scene in the picture.
Cassie eventually finds out Val is a reporter, and after they get in an argument, she must finally spend the night in the house alone. We get a dream sequence where the ever present silly rabbit again makes an appearance. Waking up, Cassie discovers the mysterious door that has been locked shut this entire time is now open...
"Two on a Guillotine" is many things- a romance, a mystery, a goofy comedy, an exploration of filial guilt and love, but in the the end, it is most definitely a horror film. The horror of an almost realized hope of parental reconnection shattered into a delusionally incestuous nightmare appointment with the guillotine. It's about about discovering the worst truth possible in the heart of your most joyous moment. This picture promises spook house thrills, but ends up delivering horror's much more disturbing and less easily shaken off.
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