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People were so excited that they agreed to work for free. In fact, the only member of the cast and crew to be paid was Neyman's 6-year-old daughter, Jackey Neyman (now Jones), who played Hal's on-screen daughter, Debbie. ''I got a red bicycle,'' says Jones. Jackey's pet Doberman, Shanka, who played the Master's evil sidekick, was also compensated for his efforts with 50 pounds of dog food. (He must have had a good agent.) The rest of the cast and crew were all promised percentages of the film's sure-to-be-vast profits. ''Everybody did it on speculation,'' explains Pat Littledog, who was then married to Manoscinematographer Robert Guidry. ''There was no money involved — just having little shares of the work. They were all excited to be a part of it.'' Only there seemed to be a few too many shares going around. ''I was getting 6 percent,'' says stunt coordinator-actor Bernie Rosenblum, who spent his entire time on screen in a car chugging tequila and sucking face with a brunette. ''But then we all started talking and realized that everybody's percentages added together equaled, like, 300 percent!''
With cast and crew in place, Warren just needed to find a place to film the thing. He didn't have to look far. Warren shared an office floor with a lawyer named Colbert Coldwell who was just getting ready to run for county judge. When Coldwell told Warren about his property, it seemed perfect. ''They wanted. . .well, I don't know what they wanted,'' says Coldwell, now 84, of that desert property, which he still owns and lives on. It might have been the collection of one-story-high columns that his father had hauled away from the federal courthouse when it was torn down in 1932, although Coldwell notes with resignation that ''they're not too imposing. . .. The director said he knew about films. I don't know if he knew anything much.''
Manos filmed throughout the summer of 1966. By all accounts, it was grueling. ''They were all working eight hours a day at their regular jobs and then going and shooting all night out in the middle of the desert,'' says Richard Brandt, a fan who has become something of a Manos historian. Although everyone was thrilled to be involved, it soon became clear that making a movie requires things like money, time, and talent — none of which Warren possessed in abundance. As a result, mistakes during filming were either missed or intentionally ignored. ''Everybody was always questioning Hal, asking 'How is this going to work?''' remembers Jones. ''When I would worry about the way things were going, he'd say to me, 'Oh, don't worry. It'll be fine. We'll fix it. We'll fix it.'''
Whether it was an evening scene being filmed in broad daylight, Margaret's scarf magically appearing and disappearing between shots, or car headlights appearing in the background during a scene allegedly taking place in the middle of nowhere, there were many instances in which the faith of cast and crew was severely tested. Yet Hal would always assure them of a magic studio in Dallas in which anything could be corrected. That's because that's what Rosenblum and Guidry had led him to believe. ''Whenever Hal got worried about something being wrong, Bob and I would say, 'We can fix it in the lab,''' laughs Rosenblum. ''Because we weren't getting paid, and it was getting old fast. And he'd be like, 'Oh, okay.'''
