Attack of the Puppet People

U.S.A. / 1958 Directed by Bert I. Gordon Starring John Agar John Hoyt June Kenny B&W / 79 Minutes / Not Rated Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC) MGM Home Entertainment

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		Review by Brian Lindsey

4     5   10 = Highest Rating

Bert I. Gordon was the bargain basement auteur who almost single-handedly flooded American drive-ins with giant monster movies in the 1950s. Today these flicks are remembered as much for their titles (The Amazing Colossal Man, War of the Colossal Beast, Earth vs. the Spider, etc.) as anything actually in them — the scope of Gordon's vision far exceeded the limitations of his meager budgets. Such is certainly the case with the ludicrously titled Attack of the Puppet People, in which Gordon reversed his customary theme (BIG!) to cash in on the success of Universal's The Incredible Shrinking Man. Here, instead of elephant-sized locusts or 60-foot tall madmen, an insane doll maker kidnaps and shrinks normal people to one-sixth their normal height. It's even dumber than it sounds, and the tale is not well served by the mostly piss-poor optical effects. I know, I know... Nothing new regarding "Mr. B.I.G.", right? Unfortunately Puppet People lacks much of the goofy, cheese-encrusted charm of his other films of the period, despite a generally higher caliber cast (or perhaps because of it). And there's nothing even approaching an actual "attack" in this flick — a G.I. Joe-sized John Agar lobbing Barbie's toiletry articles at the villain doesn't count. (The Colossal Beast didn't really initiate a "war", either, but at least he caused the Army some concern.)     Veteran character actor John Hoyt is the real star of Puppet People despite his second-tier billing. He plays the vaguely European Mr. Franz, an eccentric, mild mannered doll manufacturer who operates his small business from the 5th floor of a downtown office building. He's a lonely old man who talks to his creations as if they were real people. Right away this gives off a bad vibe to young college grad Sally Reynolds (June Kenney) when she applies at Dolls Inc. for a secretarial job. Against her better judgment she agrees to take the position after Franz pleads with her. Before long she's practically running the joint, as her boss is totally absorbed with his dolls... that and whatever project he has going in the back room, to which only he has the key. In the course of her duties Sally learns that a number of people who've come in contact with Mr. Franz in the past have simply disappeared, to include her predecessor at Dolls Inc. and even the building's longtime mailman. This sets off alarm bells but she's distracted when handsome Bob Westley (B-movie favorite Agar) — the "best salesman in St. Louis" — enters the picture. (Whether Bob sells materials to Franz or the doll maker supplies him with product isn't made clear, but Bob knows him fairly well and thinks Franz is just a harmless old coot.) He and Sally hit it off and wind up getting engaged. (His marriage proposal comes as the couple are enjoying The Amazing Colossal Man at a local drive-in! Intended irony aside, Gordon loved to plug his own movies in his films.) Bob tells Sally that he'll drop by Dolls Inc. to inform her boss that she'll be leaving his employ — then mysteriously disappears. Franz explains to a bewildered Sally that yes, Bob did come by and mention something about getting married, then immediately left for St. Louis. Suspecting that Franz is lying, Sally calls in the police. But the cops blow the incident off as a case of a prospective groom who suddenly got cold feet.     Incredibly, Franz insists that Sally continue working for him. When she refuses the odd doll maker takes drastic action. He simply can't bear for anyone he's grown fond of to leave him. Sally wakes up in the back room, miniaturized to the size of a Barbie. She joins Franz's collection of similarly-reduced "living dolls", including a U.S. Marine (in dress blues, no less), a teenage couple, and a blonde party gal who seems accepting of her fate. Bob is there, too, shrunken down to prevent him from taking Sally away. Franz has passed them all through his "projector", a homemade invention that converts and rearranges matter into smaller forms. He keeps them prisoner, sealed in glass tubes in a sort of suspended animation (not explained), until he gets the urge to take them out and play with them. He claims he does this so that he'll never be lonely, though it's quite clear he's got a major God complex, too. But Bob isn't taking his fate as Franz's plaything lying down. He wastes no time in formulating a plan to restore himself and his fellow captives to normal size and turn the tables on their puppetmaster. One would assume that this is where the titular "attack" would come to fruition but, as mentioned, it just ain't gonna happen, folks.     The closest we get to one is Bob's angry trashing of a Mr. Hyde puppet when Franz forces him and Sally to perform in a marionette show. In fact, nobody even dies in this movie. Instead we get some really horrible "special" effects and a boo-inducing anticlimactic ending. The oversize props (teacups, a phone, a doorknob) are actually quite decent but almost all the rear-projection shots are as pathetic as the giant grasshopper mayhem in Gordon's Beginning of the End. (Which was at least fun.) Top-billed John Agar (Tarantula) is pretty much wasted here — I think he gets only a single close-up in the entire film. John Hoyt really shines as Mr. Franz, though; he's kind of creepy in a "What if Mr. Rodgers was insane?" sort of way. But his performance isn't nearly enough to save the flick, which is also saddled with a typically bombastic score by composer Albert Glasser.     Better just to watch Incredible Shrinking Man for the umpteenth time. (Besides... we never find out what happened to the mailman!)

As with the great majority of MGM's Midnite Movie line of discs Attack of the Puppet People contains no extras save the theatrical trailer. A few minor instances of print damage aside, the DVD's crisp black and white video transfer looks exceptionally good; sound quality is fine. 8/06/02

UPDATE Like a number of the Midnite Movie titles, this disc has been going in and out of print since 2005. It is also available on an MGM double feature DVD pairing it witha another Bert I. Gordon film, Village of the Giants (1965).

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