Acting for Two: Everyone is dubbed by five actors: Warren himself, Tom Neyman, John Reynolds, William Bryan Jennings, and Warren's wife Norma. When the Masters' wives start arguing and their voices begin to merge, it becomes an odd Dada experiment in alternate reality.
Actor-Inspired Element: Tom Neyman was going through a phase of hand motifs in his art, so when he did the set design, he incorporated some of the sculpted hands he'd been working on, which led to the hand fixation of The Master and his cult.
Amateur Cast: None of the cast had ever acted on film before, although most of the main players (including Harold P. Warren himself) were community theater veterans. The wives were recruited from a local modeling agency.
The Cast Showoff: Tom Neyman contributed the various "hand" sculptures and the Master's portrait and robe.
Completely Different Title: The Japanese title's a unique variant on this, Ma no Sunote The Nest of Demons, which sounds similar to the original title while having a completely different meaningnote A direct transliteration of Manos would be Manōsu.
Corpsing: Almost literally! One of the comatose wives can be seen smirking at Torgo's antics in the HD version.
Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: A film review from shortly after the premiere lists Torgo as the film's "hero", though granted he's the closest thing to one. Curiously, the reviewer also focuses in on Torgo's "beautiful set of teeth" as his most prominent feature.
In a strange variant, Hal Warren admitted that Manos was a terrible movie, but he remained perversely proud of it all the same, and would apparently put on the old Master robes every Halloween to give out candy. At one point he half-jokingly suggested redubbing the film into a comedy in hopes of obtaining a wider release.
Jackie Neyman (Debbie) cried at the time when she saw her voice had been dubbed by someone else, much less an middle-aged woman.
Diane Mathis, who sung two tracks, stated that she and her band mates agreed at the time with the assessment that it was the worst movie ever.
Doing It for the Art: Harold P. Warren was just an average everyday man who went out there with his friends and group of community theater actors and wanted to make an entertaining horror movie with no studio backing and without the risks of Executive Meddling. Tropes Are Not Good unfortunately, as he had no experience in actually shooting, editing, or basically anything regarding movie making and it’s universally seen as one of the worst and most boring movies to sit through. Still, point for effort.
Incestuous Casting: Tom Neyman (The Master) and Jackie Neyman (Debbie) are father and daughter. Debbie ends up becoming one of the Master's wives.
Looping Lines: The movie was shot using a silent camera, so Warren and four other actors dubbed everyone's lines. If you listen closely during the wives' argument, it's not hard to hear it literally looping.
No Budget: The movie was shot for $19,000 in 1966 money, which was considered shoestring even for the time (it equates to roughly $175,000 today).
Not only did the cast and crew work on Manos for free, but Warren could only afford a single take for each scene using an outdated camera that shot up to 30 seconds at most. note Which contributed to several errors like him shouting "Cut!" and the clapperboard briefly appearing in the final cut These budget issues also led to night scenes being shot with as little lighting as possible, along with a four hour editing deadline for the film in post. In the end, Warren was only able to compensate Jackey Neyman and her dog for their work on the film (with a bicycle and 50 pounds of dog food, respectively).
Because the budget was stretched so thin, actor Tom Neyman also had to serve as the film's art director (crafting all the props and paintings, as well as the prosthetic legs for Torgo's costume) on top of his role of playing The Master — see Actor-Inspired Element and The Cast Showoff above. Warren also chose to record the film's audio in post as an attempt to save money on renting sound equipment.
The reason for the endless driving montage in the intro was because the opening credits were supposed to be added over the footage, but Warren couldn't cover the cost to do so. This is also the reason why the movie fell into the public domain, as a copyright notice wouldn't have been present in the final cut, which was required under copyright laws at the time.
The Other Darrin: The planned sequel has managed to get back almost all of the original cast, but the death of John Reynolds means that Torgo had to be recast.
Production Nickname: The film was often referred to as Mangos: Cans of Fruit by the more frustrated cast members.
Production Posse: Right before Manos was made, Warren and a bunch of Manos cast members (Tom Neyman, John Reynolds, William Bryan Jennings, plus Manos cinematographer Bob Guidry) worked together in the cast of an El Paso community theatre production of Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV.
The actors who play the Master and Debbie are father and daughter. The Master's evil dog was their dog, which is why (despite the dubbed-in barking) he's very friendly, and why those two in particular are able to handle him so well.
Peppy the poodle was the Warren family's dog, which is, perhaps, why he keeps squirming around and won't relax when Debbie is holding him.
Warren's wife Norma provided all the female voices.
For a while, it was pretty difficult to find any sort of personal information on any of the cast or crew involved in this film. Most things that are known about the crew members, such as actor John Reynolds and director Hal Warren, are mostly rumors, provided through word of mouth. One of the 2015 Blu-Ray release's main selling points was an audio commentary track featuring two of the film's stars - Tom Neyman and Jackey Neyman-Jones - finally breaking the silence and making their first public appearance in decades. A year later, Jackie released her book, Growing Up With Manos, which cleared up a lot of misconceptions, confirmed a few rumours as indeed true, and generally provided a bit more information on the production and the people involved. Naturally, to promote the book, she - and to a lesser extent, her father, before his passing in late 2016 - took on a more public persona.
The story of Diane Mahree was a total mystery when the film resurfaced, with much speculation on her background and ultimate fate. Rumors suggested she was dead; one was that she was killed in a tragic car accident shortly after the film came out, while someone claiming to be her daughter posted an obituary on a message board alleging that she died in 2007. Eventually she re-emerged as very much alive, though still valuing her privacy, and Jackey Neyman-Jones divulged a lot of the stranger-than-fiction details about Diane on her blog—Diane was an El Paso native who took a modeling job after her car broke down and had a chance meeting with Hal Warren that led to playing Margaret, then she went on to a prolific modeling career before retiring and becoming an antiques dealer.
Springtime for Hitler: A meta case. Some crew members have recalled that Hal Warren offered them 150 to 300 percent of Manos' hypothetical profits in lieu of immediate payment for their work on it. This was subverted when the film proved to be a Box Office Bomb, not even recouping its measly $19,000 budget during its brief theatrical run at a few New Mexico and Texas drive-in theaters.
Stunt Casting: Inverted. Diane Mahree was signed up for a regional West Texas Beauty Contest that would lead to Miss Texas - just so Hal Warren could say that the film starred "a local beauty queen". She actually had a pretty good modeling career later on, though.
Troubled Production: The film was made when Hal Warren befriended and later made a bet with famous screenwriter Stirling Silliphant that he could make a horror film with a low budget. And it shows. From a severely limited camera (only thirty-two seconds of film, without sound) to Warren's overall ineptitude, it was a struggle to create.
Underage Casting: Diane Mahree (Margaret) was 19 years old when they filmed this movie, and is only 13 years older than her on-screen daughter Jackey Neyman (who was six years old when she played Debbie).
What Could Have Been: Harold Warren apparently talked a well-known Hollywood actressnote Her exact identity has been lost to history, but circumstantial evidence points to Suzanne Pleshette. into flying to El Paso to play Margaret, but after realizing what an amateurish production it was (and that Warren wouldn't pay any money up front), she immediately quit.
Word of God: Jackey Newman dismisses the rumor that John Reynolds wore the leg braces incorrectly and ended up with chronic pain and an addiction to painkillers.
The pillars where the Master and his wives sleep is a real location.
The Master's "Lodge of Sins" was actually the ranch of then El Paso County Judge, Colbert Coldwell. Sadly, the house where Manos was filmed burnt down. Hotel Torgo filmed the then abandoned house before it burnt down.
The scene at the beginning where the family pulls into a scenic overlook and talks about putting the top down was filmed on Scenic Drive in El Paso. It looks the same to this day. The city in the background that Joel calls "Beautiful Ground Zero" is Ciudad Juarez.note Given the reputation that Ciudad Juarez has today, that riff becomes all that much more Hilarious in Hindsight.
According to the daughter of Hal P. Warren, his Halloween tradition was putting on the Master robe when he gave candy out. After her father died, her brother continued the tradition.
John Reynolds, who played Torgo, was usually high while filming, according to Jackey Neyman, although at the time, she just thought he was being funny. He committed suicide about a month before the film was supposed to premiere.
Jackey Neyman Jones claimed in an interview that she had looked for a copy of Manos in libraries and other places during her adolescence and early adulthood but had never been successful. note Too bad she never checked the Video Watchdog catalog, which sold copies of it for years before the MST3K airing. Then, one weekend in 1993, her father called her. He had fallen asleep watching Comedy Central, and was awakened by some familiar music during a certain Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. Jackey was overjoyed and contacted Comedy Central in New York to ask for a copy of the movie that they had just screened. When Jackey mentioned the movie, the person on the other line was completely shocked.
from shortly after the premiere lists Torgo as the film's "hero", though granted he's the closest thing to one. Curiously, the reviewer also focuses in on Torgo's "beautiful set of teeth" as his most prominent feature.