Manuel Conde

Who was Manuel Conde?

Manuel Conde was a Filipino actor, director and producer. As an actor, he also used the screen name Juan Urbano during the 1930s aside from his more popular screen name. His first film was "Mahiwagang Biyolin" in 1935. He made almost three dozen films under LVN Pictures as a contract star. He later put up his own movie company, Manuel Conde Pictures, in 1947 which produced classic films, notably the Juan Tamad series. Other movies Conde produced, directed and/or starred were Vende Cristo, Prinsipe Paris, Krus Na Kawayan, Siete Infantes de Lara and its re-make in 1973, Molave and the internationally acclaimed Genghis Khan.

Genghis Khan was the first Filipino film to be acclaimed at an international film festival in Venice in 1952. His Juan Tamad Goes To Congress is considered the best Filipino satire ever filmed. Some films intended for international release were planned by Conde but these were not pushed through because of some financial and production problems such as Saranggani, a film about the Ifugao rice terraces, a collaboration between James Agee as scriptwriter and Conde as the actor-director with United Artists as the distributor, the Rickshaw Boy and The Brown Rajah.