Production
Although Warren is often referred to as a fertilizer salesman, he was in fact manager of the American Founder's Life Insurance Co. in El Paso at the time he made Manos: The Hands of Fate.
Warren made the film on a bet. He had met Stirling Silliphant, who was in the area scouting locations for a film. Warren bet Silliphant (who would later write the award-winning screenplay for In the Heat of the Night) that he could make a successful horror movie on a limited budget.
Warren raised about $19,000. He managed to find an old 16-millimeter Bell & Howell camera to use on the film. Because the camera was spring wound, it could only shoot just over 30 seconds of film at a time. After casting himself in the starring role of Michael, he approached locals to play the other roles, as well as fill crew positions. He did not pay anyone, instead promising people a percentage of the profits. Warren and two others also dubbed all the voices, as the camera was not capable of capturing sound.
For two months, Warren, the cast and crew filmed at County Judge Colbert Coldwell's ranch. Warren's prima donna attitude caused much friction among those working on the film, who began calling the film Mangos: The Cans of Fruit behind his back.
When the time came to premiere the film in El Paso, Warren turned the premiere into a media event. He hired a limousine to carry the cast to the theater. But a few minutes into the film, the audience began heckling it, and soon broke down into hysterics. Warren and the others who worked on the film snuck out before the film was over.
Warren did manage to convince Emerson Releasing Corporation to distribute the film. As a result, the film had a short run on some drive-in theaters in West Texas. Afterwards, the movie was largely forgotten until it was featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1993. A film titled Sueño: The Dream of Hal Warren, starring George Hardy of Troll 2 as Warren, is in pre-production from Mind Bender Motion Pictures.
Read more about this topic: Harold P. Warren
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“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)