Mystery Science Theater 3000: Manos the Hands of Fate

A wonderful MST3K classic with hilarious jokes. The bonus materials are nice too. The master would approve!

This Shout Factory 2-disc DVD is a huge upgrade from the Rhino DVD version of MST3K: Manos The Hands of Fate. That DVD is still worth keeping, though. Manos The Hands of Fate(1966) is one of the worst movies ever made, but it has turned into a cult classic. I've seen home videos with men and women impersonating Torgo. This Shout Factory DVD has the MSTied version of Manos The Hands of Fate. The original 1966 version of the film is on the second disc. It looks like it was mastered off an old public domain videotape. There's interviews with Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff and Mary Jo Pehl. There are clips from the MST3K Hour version of Manos The Hands of Fate with Mike Nelson playing a Jack Perkins-ish host. We get to see both parts of Joel and the Bots poking fun of the 1940's short Hired. The documentary Hotel Torgo is an extra on disc two. There's a featurette called Jam Handy to the Rescue. There's a Manos mini poster painted by Steve Vance. The Hotel Torgo documentary has interviews with film expert Richard Brandt, the judge who loaned his inn to writer/producer Hal Warren, and Manos actor Bernie Rosenblum. I have to warn you guys. Rosenblum curses a lot! Manos The Hands of Fate(1966) is heavily flawed on an artistic and technical level. Even on a budget of $19,000, it still flopped at the box office. Mary Jo Pehl of Best Brains claims the film feels like David Lynch's Eraserhead(1977). It's a dark, bleak, joyless film. There's some good R&B and rock & roll songs in the movie. It's a mystery who performed them. These could have been songs from Warren's LP collection. The credits claim the film has an original music score by Russ Huddleston and Robert Smith. Even with filler scenes, Manos struggled to reach 74 minutes. One of the actresses/models broke her foot on the set. She was cast as one of the Master's wives. Warren filmed filler footage of her kissing Bernie Rosenblum in a sports car so she could still be in the movie. Diane Mahree is quite lovely as Michael's wife. She had natural beauty. The late John Reynolds played Torgo. He commited suicide in the Fall of Autumn 1966. Tom Neyman played The Master in the film. He also designed the "Manos robe" and the self-portrait of The Master and his dog. Hal Warren promised the cast and crew a share of the profits from the film in lieu of a salary. The film didn't make any money! The dogs in the film were paid with dog food and Jackie Neyman Jones was paid with a new bicycle. Rosenblum claims the 1966 debut of Manos was a disaster. The sound was garbled in the theater. It didn't clear up until the cops bother two teenagers. People in the theater poked fun of the movie. The cast and crew left the theater to avoid humiliation. Manos was shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1992 or so and it brought Manos back into the mainstream. Hal Warren made Manos The Hands of Fate(1966) to win a bet with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant. Manos The Hands of Fate(1966) is a train wreck of a movie that you have to witness for yourself.

El Paso salesman Harold Warren wanted to make a movie, so in 1966 he did, and committed all the sins an amateur filmmaker can make. MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE is plagued by bad cinematography, bad photography, flat acting, and no particular understanding of what it means to cut to continuity. While the plot structure isn't bad as far as lost-travelers-who-stumble-across-satanic-cult movies go, gratuitous shots of an unrelated couple necking by the side of the highway, and a female harem getting into catfights, seem only to pad the plot. Naturally, all this was a godsend for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 staff when they rescued this flick from obscurity in 1993 and proceeded to slash it into ribbons on the show, creating one of their best send-ups of one of the worst (an IMDb 1.9) films ever made. Because of that, MANOS has wormed its incompetent little way into the hearts of bad-movie lovers everywhere. (Just mention “Torgo” to one of us “Misties” and you’re apt to get an imitation of the halting-voiced goat-man who serves “The Maas-ter.”)Since MANOS was also sent up by the RiffTrax crew in 2013, the question always arises as to which is the better version. Both are great fun, but I'd have to say this one, if only because the later version is unwilling to poach too much from this one. The Mistie MANOS is a great lampoon of an absolutely awful movie, and would make a fine addition to any Mistie/RiffTrax fan's library. Note that this version includes a keepcase, a large-postcard-sized “Miniposter,” both riffed and unriffed versions of the movie, a brief chat with the MST talents who brought MANOS to the little screen, even a 24-minute documentary from 2004 about the phenomenon. Misties who want to go even further should also consider buying the recent book  Growing Up with Manos: The Hands of Fate: How I was the Child Star of the Worst Movie Ever Made and Lived to Tell the Story , written by the grown-up little girl in the movie, which corrects some common errors concerning MANOS and even explains why “auteur” Hal Warren put the necking couple into his brainchild..

Mystery Science Theatre: Joel Robinson and his robot pals watch the worse movies ever made.Manos: The Hands of Fate: cited to be THE worst movie ever made.Joel, Tom and Crow have their work cut out...Generally I don't subscribe to the view that the worse a movie is the better the episode of MST.However... Manos may be the worse film ever made... and makes for a very funny show.The first time I saw the opening sequence of Manos it literally had me howling with laughter. I say opening sequence, because there are no credits. Hal Warren, perpertrator / director of Manos could not afford them apparently. So what remains is 10 mins of bleak American wasteland seen from a car window. This becomes hilarious as Joel and the Bots offer riffs such as "visit beautiful ground zero" and "every shot in this movie looks like someone's last known photo" and then push decency with "this is going to turn into a snuff movie isnt it?"This episode is worth watching for Torgo, a truly unforgettable character that would become an occasional regular in the host segments thanks to Mike Nelson's spot on impression (the ending skit with Torgo's Pizza is brilliant.Qoutes out of context will simply not work - you have to see Torgo!If you are truly psychotic, the bonus disk includes the un-MSTIED version (aaarrrggghhh!!!!), plus a funny and clever documentary about Jam Handy, creator of many of the shorts the gang watched, in the style of a 50s short. very funny.Plus there is a 20 minute Group Therapy session with Joel, Mary Jo Pehl, Trace and Frank talking about Manos.If like me you are a UK MSTIE, treat yourself and import one of the most have episodes of the show.

One of the most important films ever made and it gets the appropriate MST3K treatment here. There really is no other movie like it. Who needs a coherent plot when you have Torgo?

we are big fans of mst so this was a must have to the collection