Back before Sean S. Cunningham wanted to attempt to cash in on the Halloween slasher craze, he attempted to cash in on the sports team full of down-and-out pre-teens craze – al a The Bad News Bears – with Manny's Oprhans and then Here Come the Tigers.
Manny's Orphans is a tad better than Here Come the Tigers, in my opinion, but both movies failed to capture that fun that The Bad News Bears captured.
Manny's Orphans was made with a slightly lower budget than Friday the 13th, but had the same team of Cunningham (director), Victor Miller (writer), and Steve Miner (editor, assistant) and even some of cast members: Ari Lehman and Irwin Keyes.
Apparently Manny's Orphans was based on a short story by Miner.
Hah ha I remembering sending this golden nugget to you a few months back on my old Google account on Gmail :-)
ReplyDeleteI was re-watching my to disc set of Crystal Lake Memories and while I thought over his pre-Friday work of quickly made rip offs/cash-ins I was thinking over that aside from some scenes on YouTube I've never seen the orphans one, sadly. Alas, I personally never assumed that I was missing much now. Also, afterwards of course some the smaller/modest kinda hit (for its time & budget factoring in only $4 tickets in more rural locations and maybe $5 in most other places) Porky's franchise rip off of Spring Break. I d oddly enjoy Mr. Cunningham's films but I feel from video interviews he is a rather fake 'n phony person and in print interviews (such as the Crystal Lake Memories book form) he can be a total prick. And as a film maker I oddly enjoy his shots & atmosphere but he is a typical lazy rip off artist
Ah well like all of us in life, he wanted to get lucky & he did. A Stranger is Watching was actually an adapted novel he bought but I never got too into it when finally seeing it a few years back. Also of course there was the mild Abyss rip-off that was DeepStar Six. I remember caching it on cable as a kid and finding it fairly lame & forgettable.
You might enjoy this brief moment with a certain late/great Friday actress. She (in my eyes, anyway) was one of the few shining moments in the other wise dog shit/overrated Friday Part VII:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7zkxMlaLTo