A near-forgotten gem-- Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

It is an unfortunate inevitability that sometimes, something truly special might get buried by the whims—or in this case, hands—of fate, perhaps rediscovered by future generations or simply never found. This is is a true gem that thankfully was dug out by a certain cable show nearly thirty years after it was made, to be relished and enjoyed by all those who might swoon at the ingenious innovations of storytelling and edition on display here. Behold, a tale of driving past Texan countryside and dealing with annoying BNBs, with Manos: The Hands of Fate. 

So the tale goes, the film was cobbled together back in 1966 by fertilizer salesman Harold P. Warren, screened on a very limited basis around El Paso back in ’66, and promptly forgotten. Some people would disingenuously claim that this was because the film was about as watchable as a Chippendales audition tape from JD Vance, but in truth, it’s almost certainly that such brilliance that we are about to see was simply too much for the rest of the world to handle. 

Our tale begins as any great one does, with a family trying to figure out directions on a parched patch of highway. Our father seems to have taken one valium too many and the young daughter sounds about 45 years old—excellent verisimilitude, for this being the sixties, it simply reflects that she would be given at least twenty cigarettes that morning alone. While sitting there doing nothing, they then proceed to perform the entirety of ‘Row, row, your boat’. Already the film challenges genre constraints, positing itself as a musical as epic as Hamilton—a musical themed around the eternal challenge of staving off boredom on a ridiculously long road trip. What more could you want?

And so our intrepid protagonists proceed, stopped by a police officer presumably for the crime of not having enough whisky in their car, only to be let off when informing him that it is ‘their first holiday’. Cutting-edge satire, as the film obviously wants us to believe that the only reason they got away with such a nonsensical excuse is that they’re middle-class and in a Mustang. Following this, we get perhaps the most riveting sequence in cinema, as we drive past many, many parched Texan fields and driveways, accompanied by song lyrics artfully designed to sound like they’re being made up by a drunk lounge singer on the spot:

“It’s real enouggghhahaiiiii!

Leadtheway I love youuuuuu!

Itsth the seleraaagghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Between all of this, I managed to understand the filmmakers intent to communicate that Texas, in fact, at least isn’t Arkansas. 

Not since Lawrence of Arabia have I seen such epic vistas of an exotic land. You can nearly see Skeeter McSkeeterson's Alfalfa Brownie farm from here!

Oh, and interspersed between all this is the drama of two teenagers, who may or may not be thirty, kissing for about twelve hours through the whole film in a car. I’m not sure if they’re related or not. Still, it is, in fact, a better…ish love story than Twilight. 

Eventually, our family makes it to the Valley Lodge, greeted by a strange fellow who judging by his legs has never taken his pants off ever, for any reason. This is arguably the true protagonist of the film, Torgo, played by John Reynolds, who is quick to insist that “the mAstER woULD nOt aPProve’, while being barked out by our sixties father to unload the luggage, for what else must one do when confronted with the life-changing challenge of finding roadside accommodation from someone that probably brushes their teeth with racoon tails? After all, he might have to pay five more dollars for gasoline!

"If it hadn't been for weird ol' Torgo, I'd been married a long time ago, where did you come from, where did you go weird ol' Torgo?"

Inside, such is the relatable obsession of our father in, er, not having to risk getting more cramp in his car that he ignores the random sculptures of hands stolen from an art class and the giant creepy portrait of Frank Zappa’s cult leader brother staring at them all. Only after a strange noise does he in fact decide to force Torgo to return the luggage to the car, two minutes after he finished bringing it all in, prioritizing that over daughter and wife. Truly, is there nothing more that encapsulates the priorities of middle America?

"Hic, hol' up, theresch a bug in your hair...now give me a few minutesch...nearly there..."

A truly great love story however ensues when Torgo attempts to seduce the wife, with all the grace of a fifty-year old perv after sixteen vodka shots at any bar at 3am. Nevertheless, he is spurned, and he only had a mere six thousand fleas in his beard. However, we now see the rifts between him and the ‘Master’, who we can deduce by now is not in fact the head of a secret desert S&M dungeon. 

"I am the god of hellfire! And I bring you...well, some kinda fire, whaddya want for fifty-seven cents?"

Speaking of, after many assuredly not redundant scenes of talking about and peeking through windows, we finally have the Master arise while surrounded by his ‘wives’, and who would not be awed by the sight of pasty John Turturro in a demonic mumu? In either case, in a tale of true romantic tragedy, he happens to be pissed that Torgo is trying to muscle in on his game, and your heart will truly turn as he decides to rectify this with…something involving a small fire. 

In the meantime, his wives must also contend with the question that inevitably comes over every host—whether to murder your guests, or merely kidnap them? This leads to a very long scuffle between them in the sand, which a cynical viewer might call a bad attempt at titillation—but thanks to Warren’s masterful direction, not only do we get no such thing, we in fact are made to sit through this for so long that we begin to question the very concept of titillation in the first place. What other film could provoke such deep contemplation?

Eventually, however, our family tries to escape, bringing along a gun that they eventually only choose to use against a random rattlesnake. This almost brings the attention of nearby police, who simply brush off the noise as being ‘from Mexico’—sixty years ago, and already we deal with the scapegoating of the southern border! Will the prescience here never cease? After this, however, the family decide to instead turn around and return to the cultish den they just escaped from because…it’ll be safer there…and…er…nuts, I got nothing.

And so our movie ends with our father enthralled and taking the place of Torgo in watching the lodge, deeply symbolizing the assimilation of identity within the middle-class, or something. Such is Manos—a film that leaves you full of questions, and yet at the same time not entirely sure what you just watched. Yet, its genius clearly touched some, with multiple fan-made prequel films decades later, and more—what more tribute Warren could’ve wanted for his misunderstood concepts? 

But seriously, only watch this one with a few glasses of tequila.