BR: Manos – The Hands of Fate (1966)

December 29, 2015 | By Mark R. Hasan

Film: Sublime Fromage

Transfer: Excellent

Extras: Very Good

Label: Synapse Films

Region: A, B, C

Released: October 13, 2015

Genre: Horror

Synopsis: A father must save his wife and daughter from the evil clutches of a desert cult leader.

Special Features: Audio Commentary with actor Tom Neyman and seamstress / wife Jackey Raye “Debbie” Neyman-Jones / 3 Featurettes: “Hands: The Fate of Manos” + “Restoring the Hands of Fate” + “Felt: the Puppet Hands of Fate” / Grindhouse Unrestored Version of “Manos: The Hands of Fate” [Blu-ray exclusive].

Review:

Back in the mid-sixties, community theatre actor / fertilizer salesman Harold (Hal) P. Warren mined his local El Paso, Texas, theatre troupe for what he hoped could be an entry into big-time feature-length filmmaking, but when Manos: The Hands of Fate finally premiered at the local Capri Theatre, it became clear what had been shot by local news cameraman Robert Guidry, scored by a local jazz group, and written / directed / produced / starring Warren was a complete disaster. Several key personnel snuck out of the screening and headed for the local bar, leaving the audience to absorb what may be the worst film every made – a moniker often proscribed to Ed Wood, Jr.’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959).

Wood’s filmmaking skills are on par with John Huston when compared to Warren’s incredible ineptitude, and while a complete creative disaster, it’s managed to endure because of a hypnotic awfulness that could never be recaptured in earnest; it’s simply the result of too many special elements; a once in a millennium event that begs to be experienced sober, because if one were drunk, the nuances wouldn’t be half as baffling and delightful.

Before it vanished from circulation, Manos reportedly screened at drive-ins to dumbfounded patrons expecting a horror film about a sacrificial cult living in a remote part of the desert. Over time, the film gradually built up a fan base after it was screened as part of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in 1992.

Manos has been available on VHS and DVD for several years, but Synapse took on the role of releasing a restored edition, newly transferred in HD from a rare 16mm print. Warren shot his epic on 16mm reversal, making any dupe prints look hideous. The time spent by the film’s preservation group (it exists) cleaning up and stabilizing already awful photography may not have changed the inept compositions or out of focus shots, but the colours (especially reds) are remarkably vibrant, making this the best version to experience a unique nadir in filmmaking.

Warren and virtually everyone connected with the film never made another movie (although co-editor James A. Sullivan edited, shot, produced, and directed a few Texas-based indie features), which adds to the mystery of Manos, its makers, and what exactly comprises the film’s plot.

In its simplest form, a family and their dog gets lost in the desert and oblige a caretaker named Torgo to allow them lodging in a remote cabin, unaware that the home’s ‘Master’ is a cult leader with plans of sacrificing both the wife and daughter to an ancient deity named Manos. Torgo is involved in a ‘power struggle’ with his Master that’s rooted in the servant’s mounting jealousy of the expansive harem of wives that’s off limits to hired hands. When Torgo is dispatched to a ‘fiery’ demise, the final battle between the Master and the father (Warren) will decides who controls both the coven and the ramshackle house.

It’s really an understatement to say words cannot detail the film’s ineptitude, but it’s true: all the goofball dialogue is post-synched, all female voices (including the daughter) were dubbed by a singular local talent, actor John Reynolds who played Torgo was high most of the time, Warren believed himself to be a Method actor, and the film was allegedly stitched together one afternoon over a few hours, which may explain its assembly edit state.

The original jazz score was performed by fairly able musicians lacking any insight into film scoring, and the opening title music – a vocal – often obliterates the first dialogue spoken in Manos. The Master’s wives, dressed like a fifties version of an ancient Greek harem, were cast from a local model agency.

Manos is ostensibly a special kind of fromage, and Synapse’s Blu-ray is packed with an excellent gallery of making-of extras that attempt to trace its genesis. Perhaps the most talented member of the cast is Tom Neyman (the Master), who also painted the striking art in the film, created the unique hand sculptures from metal and wood, and designed the costumes (which were sewn by his wife). The Master’s cape is especially trippy: when both arms are outstretched, two giant red hands blaze across the screen.

Also included in this release is a ‘grindhouse’ version of the film – basically a beat-up print – and a short profile called “Felt: The Puppet Hands of Fate,” featuring an interview with Rachel Jackson, the writer / producer of Manos: The Hands of Felt, which tells the tale of the film and its production using muppets. (A Kickstarter campaign enabled Jackson and her troupe to produce and release a DVD of the show.)

The weakest extra is the gap-heavy commentary with Neyman and wife Jackey Raye “Debbie” Neyman-Jones , which offers nothing new to the film’s lore; it’s a terrible example of what happens when there’s no moderator, leaving the commentators to meander and natter.

MST3000 released a 2-disc DVD set back in 2011, and among its quirky extras is “Hotel Torgo,” a 27 mins. documentary from 1993 with actor / stunt coordinator Bernie Rosenblum recalling (with great frankness and profanity) his side of filming, and a brief interview with Colbert Coldwell, the former judge whose ranch (now abandoned) and weird monument to town judges served as the Master’s home and sacrificial temple, respectively. Also on hand is Manos historian Robert Brandt, who provides a tongue-in-cheek chronology of its production. The MST3000 doc ends with Rosenblum attending a film screening, and as he meets fans, it’s clear he’s quite bemused in being associated with one of the weirdest footnotes in cinema history.

Synapse’s own making-of doc “Hands: The Fate of ‘Manos’” gathers new interviews with former actors and crew previously thought ‘lost’ (dead), including actress / model Diane Adelson, Neyman, and Manos restorationist Benjamin Solovny, (who also appears in a separate doc in the film’s HD restoration). It’s a much more in-depth investigation of the film’s production history, with overstated stock music cues enhancing the fromage factor, plus a wealth of behind-the-scenes stills.

Neither docs add further info to the origins of the jazz combo who sung / performed the music score by Ross Huddleston and Robert Smith Jr. that’s such an integral element of the film’s badness, and it’s a shame no separate stems survived for an alternate audio track, but there is a limited LP release that features music and the overlaid dialogue from Manos (although what one often hears in the film are just a handful of the same tracks edited repeatedly over scenes.).

External References:
Editor’s Blog — IMDB — Soundtrack Album — Composer Filmographies

Vendor Search Links:
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