S T A T S

A B O U T

GENERAL INFO: "Manos" was the final episode broadcast in Season Four of MST3K, the 24th. It first aired on January 30th, 1993.

FILM INFO "Manos" The Hands of Fate was written, directed, and produced by American fertilizer salesman Hal Warren in 1966, as a result of a bet. He intended to make a successful horror film on a shoestring budget. Warren accumulated a small sum of cash, reportedly $19,000, and hired a group of actors from a local theatre and modeling agency, promising a share in the film's profits due to his lack of funds to pay actual wages.

Under the working title, "The Lodge of Sins", the movie was filmed in the summer of 1966 with a 16mm Bell & Howell camera which had to be wound by hand and only filmed for 32 seconds, which is a possible explanation for many cases of the alleged "Choppy editing work" present in the final cut. In addition, there are also some shots that show inconsistent editing or are to some degree out of focus which appear to defy technical explanations and can only be acredited to human error. This camera also was unable to record sound, and thus all sound effects and dialogue were dubbed later in post-production, reportedly by only three or four people including Warren.

Due to a lack of both budget and basic competence, the "goat" legs of the character Torgo were conveyed by dressing actor John Reynolds in overlarge pants and stuffing them full of padding and having Reynolds walk with a strange and slow gait. Fake cloven hooves were also made by Reynolds for his costume, but they are difficult to see on screen, especially in the Mystery Science Theater version.

Night time proved hard for Warren to work with (for whatever reason, Warren chose not to use the normal technique of shooting day-for-night). In many of the night scenes, the camera and lights attracted swarms of moths, which can be seen in the film's final production. Also, in the scene in which the cops "investigate" Mike's gunfire, they could only walk a few feet forward, as there wasn't enough light to illuminate the scenery for a panning shot.

In addition, there were rumoured to have been opening credits intended to be included in the film, but they were left out during post-production resulting in the opening scenes of the film consisting of the main characters driving around looking for their hotel with minimal effect on the plot.

Reportedly, Warren's small crew became so bemused by his amateurishness and irascibility that they derisively called the movie Mangos, the Cans of Fruit behind his back.

FILM SUMMARY: Though the first intersting characters we're introduced to are simply described as "the make-out couple", The film's main thrust follows Michael and Margaret, a married couple, their small daughter, Debbie, and their poodle, Peppy, on a road trip. They become stranded at the lodge of Torgo, who is taking care of the place while the Master is away. Through Michael's bullheaded stubborness and a shot transmition, the family is pursuaded to stay - even though several unsettling events take place, among them the death of Peppy.

It's Debbie who stumbles upon the Master's horrifying hellbeast and the ten white-nightgowned brides slumbering in his tomb. Michael still thinks Debbie's imagining stuff and the family heads off to sleep. Alone, Torgo then goes back to the tomb, mentioning to The Master his yearning for just one wife for himself and fondling the unconcious women. When he leaves, the Master and his wives awaken.

The Master is not pleased with Torgo for letting the family stay at his lodge. He decides to sacrifice Torgo and make Margaret one of his wives. The wives do not approve of The Master taking yet another bride and fight over the fate of Debbie. The Master eventually has enough of this, and in punishment for his disobedience he has has the wives sacrifice Torgo to "Manos", their god - which doesn't exactly go to plan, as Torgo lives. The Master then lops off Torgo's hand and he runs off into the woods.

The family is frightened by Torgo's shieking and attempts escape, but this is apparently foiled by a rattlesnake. They confront The Master, and Michael tries to shoot him to death, which is ineffective. Trapped and under his power, the family eventually become The Master's new servents - Mike replacing Torgo, and Debbie and Margaret his wives.

After Filming: The film premired on November 15, 1966 at the Capri Theater in Warren's hometown of El Paso, Texas. Heavily promoted, it was attended by numerous local dignitaries and media. Warren rented a limousine to deliver himself and his cast to the theater; the limo would drop off one group, then drive around the block and pick up another. Shortly after the film began, however, the audience began laughing at its poor quality and redundant dialogue. Humiliated, Warren and the rest of his cast made a hasty exit before the end, which brought a mixture of laughter and applause.

Hal Warren returned to selling fertilizer following Manos. He attempted to pitch another script he had written called Wild Desert Bikers, but with the failure of Manos no one he approached showed any interest in making these ideas into movies.

John Reynolds (Torgo) committed suicide not long after the movie was made, reportedly either through a self-inflicted gunshot wound or a drug overdose. Some accounts claim he suffered from a drug addiction, and according to Jackey Neyman Jones, Reynolds was usually quite high during filming.

Rumors long claimed that other cast members had also killed themselves shortly after the release of the movie: Diane Mahree, the female lead; Sherry Proctor, one of The Master's wives; and Joyce Molleur, the female half of the "make-out couple". However, the makers of Hotel Torgo, a 2004 documentary about Manos, researched these rumors and found no obituaries or any other evidence to confirm them.

Reportedly, Quentin Tarantino owns a rare 35 mm copy of the film and has stated that this film is his favorite "comedy".

MST3K Host Seg Summaries: The edit that MST3K uses in the broadcast has a small omission: in the recut version of the film, The Master kills his first wife for dissobedience. The MST3K version is preceeded by the short "Hired! Part 2", a training film from Ford Motors.

Cold Open: Joel reprograms the 'Bots to agree with everything he says. He soon finds this tiresome.

Invention Exchange: Dr. F and Frank introduce the Chocolate Bunny Gilloutine, which chops the "best part" of the chocolate treat clean off the body; Joel and the Bots introduce the "Cartooner", which takes multiple comic strips and meshes them together, making them funny.

Host Seg #1: Joel and the Bots reinacts the family's long, long drive through the country. Tom breaks down under the horrifying memories of Manos brought up by reinacting the film, causing Crow to collapse emotionally as well, runing "redneck cop" Gypsy's big scene. Frank cuts in to appologize for the movie and try to keep the bots' spirits up.

Host Seg #2: Joel, Crow and Tom expound on Torgo's lameness, exemplifying his big knees as his only monstely trait. They wonder what makes a monster and try to figure out which body part would be the most horrifying if enlarged, and talk about what kind of monsterly trait they'd like to have.

Host Seg #3: Joel pretends to be The Master, with Crow as his red-eyed horrifying hellbeast. Tom could care less. Dr. F interrupts to appologize to them for showing "Manos".

Host Seg #4: Tom and Crow wrestle in diaphronous white nightgowns, horrifying Joel. Down in Deep 13, Frank and Dr. F have ordered a pizza, which is then delivered (very slowly) by Torgo.

Stinger: Make-Out Girl: "Hey, Why Don't You Leave Us Alone?"

MST3K Quotes:

Tom's driving monologue: "So, I told Gary that I was *going* on this vacation. So he goes, "Well, then, I'm going hunting with Jeff next weekend." Well, that's when we were at knives. And Millie sang 'Fernando,' and then Gary--oh, he sang so good--Oh, you should meet Jeff some time. Do you like Barry Manilow songs? I know the farmers need rain, but when it's damp like this, my hair just explodes--just ex-plo-des! Ooo, ooo...feeling kinda gassy--McNuggets, you know, they make me so gassy--all that grease and all. It really helps if you drink eight to ten glasses of water a day. Did you know that? Sometimes I drink five, sometimes I drink nine just to make up for the other three I didn't drink. Coffee and diet drinks don't count either. You know, this is pretty country, isn't it? You know, it's really kind of a blessing in disguise that I didn't get accepted to college. You know, I'm going to have to revise my 20-year plan, but--oh, did I tell you about my 20-year plan? Okay, well, okay, listen here--in year one, this is the year when I'm going to take off those extra seven pounds--you know, that's equal to seven pounds of butter, so it's like I'm *wearing* seven pounds of butter! Uh...oh, where was I? Oh, oh, yeah. So my aunt and uncle here, they celebrated their 20th anniversary, and my uncle wanted to sing 'Sunrise, Sunset'--he wanted *me* to sing that, and I haven't sung that since Cindy's wedding, and, well, she never thanked me for that, well, I'm still--she's probably really busy and all..."

Crow: "This is a snuff film!"

Manos and MST3K: The MiSTing of Manos did incredible things for both the show and for the movie. In Manos, MST3K got its first widely-known and recognizable cult episode. While the show built Manos' reputation as one of the worst movies ever, it built MST3K's reputation as one of the best series. It is considered so important that it was the first released under Rhino's DVD repackaging of the show as an "Essential", along with Santa Clause Conquors The Martians.

The "Torgo" character, as played by Michael Nelson on the show, became a reccuring character on MST3K. After his appearence in "Manos", he returns in Season 5's "Opperation 007" - it turns out that he was walking slowly (very slowly) to his car to retrieve the Mads' Mr. Pibbs. They reject the now-flat soda, plus the crazy bread Torgo's been keeping warm in his pants. He asks to use the bathroom, and does so.

After apparences on the show's Turkey Day outings, he also resurface's in the same season's "Village of the Giants", where Dr. F hires him as Frank's replacement. Frank eventually does something horrible to Torgo off-camera, and gets his job back.

He appears in Season 6's "San Francisco International", unable to get into the fun of Mike being Urkel, and thus causing said fun to collapse.

When Frank dies in "Samson Versus the Vampire Woman", Torgo appears as "Torgo The White" and takes Frank to Second Banana Heaven.

MST3K ressurected Manos' reputation from abysmal horror movie to a sort of a great comedy. In attempting to explain the film's appeal, the Los Angeles Times hypothesized, "After screening Manos for probably the 10th time, I've concluded it has to do with intimacy. Because it is such a pure slice of Warren's brain - he wrote, directed, produced and starred, and brooked no collaboration - Manos amounts to the man's cinematically transfigured subconscious."

Warren said, 28 years before Mystery Science Theater 3000, that re-dubbing the film would make a passable comedy. Modern-day fans of the film would all but agree, despite their fondness for it.

The film is regularly in the Top Ten Bad Films of All Time list on IMDB.com. ToRgO sPeAk has become a popular way of conversing in the web, there have been Manos theatre revivals; it has been re-released in a "Straight" version on video. In 2006 a Portland, Oregon theatre company, Last Rites Productions, did a play based on the story. Also, as mentioned above, "Hotel Torgo", a doccumentary of the Manos phenomena, was released. -with assistance from wikipedia.com

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