Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Manos V/S The Curse of Bigfoot

Ha. Got you to look. There is no V/S. They are both horrible to watch and actually "The Curse of Bigfoot" is probably worse than Manos. Something they have in common beside making you want to gouge out your own eyes, is...Me. I find it odd that my film career consists of films such as these. I pray it's not an on going trend and that the films I'm currently involved in fare better. "The Curse of Bigfoot" was so strange in that it was originally filmed in 1958 and then shelved before completion. Then it was picked up in 1976 and other scenes were filmed. Then they called it good and released it.  Our little group of volunteers (yes, it's true.  I didn't get paid for that film either) showed up on a Sat. morning and spent most of that day just milling around while the director figured out what he wanted to do.  Pretty boring all in all but there is one little trivia you may be interested in.  The frizzy haired kid sitting to my right was one of the actors in the original "Bad News Bears".  He was a nice enough guy although a bit self important because of his self proclaimed celebrity status.  That same year, I became the youngest student director to direct a student play and he was one of my actors.  Edward Albee's "Zoo Story".  Only two characters in the whole play and attempting to direct him was like herding cats.

 In 1976 I was a High School Junior in Southern Ca. at Montclair High School. Our Drama teacher Mr. Tim Tackett was my favorite teacher. He had trained in martial arts with Bruce Lee and taught us meditation as a way to prepare for the stage. Somehow, through a friend of his, our drama class was asked to be extras for a classroom scene in "The Curse of Bigfoot". I recently discovered a photo of that scene in a contest "Which one is the little girl from Manos" http://forum.rifftrax.com/index.php?topic=24965.0  I already answered that question on the contest but if you don't read my comment there, you can make your own guess.