Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Growing Up Manos


An old article was recently brought back to my attention.  I believe this was my first interview about Manos, The Hands of Fate.  It was titled “Growing up, Manos”, published in Mimosa Magazine August 2003 and written by Manos Historian Richard Brandt.   From the time of the initial airing of  MST3000 in 1993 until I discovered that Manos actually had a historian in 2003, the film was, to me, still just something I had done with my family as a kid.  I joked about it to my friends but no one actually wanted to watch it, even after I discovered it in the Cult Movie section at Block Buster Video.  The few friends who insisted I watch it with them never made it more than 20 minutes into the film and the few other’s who borrowed my copies, rarely returned them. You know who you are.  As soon as I got my first home computer and learned about the internet, I began searching for anything Manos.  During one of my forays, I found an article by Richard in the May 1996 Mimosa Magazine titled “The Hand that Time Forgot”. I was intrigued by the idea that other people wanted to talk about Manos too so I contacted him.  Today, I’d like to share the story “Growing up Manos” and update or clarify a couple things in the story.  http://jophan.org/mimosa/m30/brandt.htm
First of all.  Yes Hal was a fertilizer salesman later on but at the time of  Manos, he was a respected insurance salesman.  I do however, understand how a Texas fertilizer salesman making the worst movie ever does have certain ring to it.  Up dated info on the voices is that Diane did not do the women voices.  Hal Warren, Tom Neyman, William Bryan Jennings and John Reynolds went to Dallas to do the dubbing and a voice actress from Dallas did all the women voices. The only other change I would make is that although it would have been cool to attend, I did not attend Berkeley.  Great story and well written, Richard.  Will you ever write about Manos again?

6 comments:

  1. Great article indeed!
    I'm always amazed by just how deeply involved Tom and Jacqueline were in the Production Design aspect of it, creating the paintings and sculptures and costumes (namely the cool stuff).

    It's so weird to think we've never actually heard your voice on it! I mean, yes, I've always realised about the dubbing, but before reading this I'd somehow never arrived at the explicit conclusion that we haven't been hearing your voice at all (or Diane's, for that matter).

    Also, does this mean that the Torgo voice we hear is John Reynolds' actual voice? Did he dub Torgo himself after all? I've always wondered about that.

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  2. My dad says that yes. That is John Reynolds voice. As for me. Wouldn't it be funny to do a remake or re dub Manos and let me do all the women's voices? Is that a paradox? Debbie finally has a voice.

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  3. Better yet. Get Diane to do her own voice, I'll do mine and we'll both dub the wives.

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    1. Wow, that's extraordinary. I've spent years (as I'm sure others must have) thinking that Torgo's voice was probably the work of some unknown voice actor and wondering how different it was from the voice John Reynolds had created for the character. You've made a huge difference in setting my mental history of Manos straight. Thank you kindly! (Upon re-reading, "my mental history" sounds like something out of a psych ward, but "mental records" sounded even worse).

      About Diane and you re-dubbing, that would be so awesome. Also, if a viewer were to read too much into it, it would add a whole new dimension to the story by creepily foreshadowing the ending if the wives' voices sounded like Diane's and yours. Think about it.

      By the way, did Debbie's on-screen voice at least sound anything like yours?

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    2. Oh God no. I was horrified by the voice that came from my on screen mouth. Diane's voice was nothing like the voice actress either.

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    3. To me, Debbie's voice always sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher in Peanuts, that is, a muffled trumpet. Therefore, I certainly hope it sounded nothing like young Jackey's voice.

      As for Diane and Jackey re-dubbing the voices, that would be a cool bonus feature on the DVD release.

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