Attack of the Puppet People
by Bert I. Gordon
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DVD details
Actor: Jack Kosslyn, John Agar, John Hoyt, June Kenney, Michael MarkDirector: Bert I. Gordon
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: Pan & Scan, 1.33:1
Running Time: 79 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-02-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Attack of the Puppet People
DVD Review: Only John Hoyt Shows Class
Summary: 3 Stars
When director Bert Gordon saw the unexpected profits from his AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and the earlier INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, he decided that there was room enough in Hollywood for yet another film on a man out of size. In THE ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE, Gordon reshot the much more artistic ISM minus any mystical or sociological subtext. Here, he cast veteran B actor John Hoyt as Mr. Franz, a demented doll maker who also invented a machine that could shrink human beings down to a mere six inches in height. Gordon did not concern himself with the fact that while it was theoretically possible to shrink matter, the mass would remain constant even while the actual size was reduced. Thus a six inch human being must weigh as much as before, much like a snowball compressed into a tightly packed core. Hoyt plays Franz in a manner that suggests he is your typical Insane Scientist, one who cannot fathom why his shrunken victims might not appreciate his solicitude for their well-being. As usual, Hoyt's smooth diction elevates his performance above his fellow cast. John Agar as Bob the salesman is his usual bland self, one who annoys the audience and the object of his affections, the lovely Sally, equally blandly played by June Kenney. Agar comes across as a jerk, but soon he and Miss Kenney are in a drive in theater where he pops the question with her accepting. There are four other shrunken people. What is astounding about them is that they are played as total airheads. When these four first meet Agar and Kenney, they cannot understand why their new fellow miniatures are not ecstatic about their new station in life. The plot is simple. All the puppet people try to escape. There are some scenes of huge mice, cats, and dogs attacking them, which brings to mind some similar scenes from TISM, though in the latter case, were more startling and acceptable. There is not much to recommend in PUPPET PEOPLE, except that Hoyt manages to come across as one who commits evil but is unaware of doing so. His Mr. Franz is involved in the world of the microcosmic. For him, the macro world is fraught with danger and pain. When he mentions that his wife left him for another, the audience could actually connect with him on a visceral level. Even at the end, with his miniature emprire crumbling, he still convinces us that he is more sinned against than sinning. THE ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE emerges as a mildly cautionary tale of the dangers in reducing the pain in one's heart by reducing the external world down to a more manageable size.DVD Review: B Movie Madness
Summary: 5 Stars
As others have already noted, this is an early Sci Fi B Movie, with wooden acting and laughable dialogue, still for its time the special effects are surprisingly well done. Having said all that its still not so horrible or bad that its rendered un-watchable. I had to add it for my collection because I love this genre and in that category its excellent.DVD Review: "You funny, little people...I wonder why it is you always hate me so at first."
Summary: 4 Stars
You could generally count on two things when going into a film from producer/director/writer Bert I. Gordon, the first being shoddy visual effects (usually done by Bert himself), and the second being based on the title of the film, you had a good idea what you were going to get, some examples being...The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) had a fifty-foot man going nutzo...Village of the Giants (1965) had a handful of super-sized wacky teenage types giving the establishment what for...and then this film, titled Attack of the Puppet People (1958) featured a group of, you guessed it, pint-sized people struggling to get by in an oversized world. Produced, co-written, and directed by Gordon the film stars John Agar (The Mole People, The Brain from Planet Arous), June Kenney (Teenage Doll, Earth vs the Spider), and John Hoyt (Blackboard Jungle, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes). Also appearing is Michael Mark (The Wasp Woman), Laurie Mitchell (Queen of Outer Space), Jack Kosslyn (The Magic Sword), Ken Miller (I Was a Teenage Werewolf), Scott Peters (The Madmen of Mandoras), and Marlene Willis (Rockabilly Baby).
As the film opens we see a Brownie troop visiting a modest doll manufacturing company called Dolls, Inc. (snazzy name there) owned and operated by seemingly kindly older man named Franz (Hoyt). As the girls pour over the dolls on display, we see some rather life-like ones in glass canisters in a locked display case on the wall, apparently part of Mr. Franz's special, personal collection...hmmm...enter Sally Reynolds (Kenny), an attractive young woman answering an ad Franz recently submitted to the newspapers who's in need of a new secretary (his last one up and left under mysterious circumstances...yeah right). Despite being a little weirded out by the old man's behavior (seems he's a little too into his dollies), Sally takes the job, much to the delight of a traveling salesman who works with Franz named Bob Westley (Agar) as he begins putting some serious moves on her (what an operator). As the pair make plans for the future, Bob up and disappears, and Franz informs Sally he went back home to take care of business and she should try to forget him. Sally, thinking something hinky at the doll factory, goes to the police with a crackpot theory, but when it doesn't pan out, she decides it's time to split...well, it seems Franz suffers from a severe case of separation anxiety, so much so that when anyone he feels close to tries to leave, he has an interesting method in getting them to stay, specifically a sophisticated shrinky dinky machine, one he uses to put the whammy on Sally. Turns out Franz has quite the collection of pocket-sized pals, the same ones he keeps on display in glass canisters in the front office. After mini Sally is reunited with puny Bob, Franz spills the beans about his process, along with his motives for doing what he does, to which afterwards he introduces Sally and Bob to some of his other diminutive `friends'. As the wee people plot their escape, Franz gets sloppy, and the police start sniffing around. Franz begins to freak, deciding to throw one last shindig with his itty-bitty buddies before closing up shop permanently...
Despite some obvious flaws, I enjoyed this strictly `B' 1950s sci-fi feature. The story may seem weak in a number of areas, but I'd argue it was more of a matter of simplicity. I have little doubt the film was probably made in a very short amount of time, and it seems to have no pretenses about its intent, that being mainly to entertain (and make as much dough as possible). I liked the fact Hoyt's character wasn't evil, but just lonely, desperately in need of companionship. That didn't excuse his actions, but in his mind his relationships with those he chose to de-embiggen worked both ways...he got to spend time with them whenever he wanted while they enjoyed the life of Riley, never having to worry about those mundane concerns most all of us deal with on a daily basis like work, paying bills, and so on...his character's science with regards to his miniaturization process seems somewhat ambiguous (it involved molecular breakdown and resonant frequencies), but I'm sure it probably came across a whole lot more plausible to audiences back in the day when originally released. I'll admit, I'm somewhat of a closet John Agar fan. The man may have not been one of the great actors of the time, but you could generally count on him being entertaining. He's got a few good scenes here, but I've always thought one of his best features to be The Brain from Planet Arous, where he served up the eggs with a big, fat, juicy slab of honey-baked ham. As far as the rest of the performers they did well enough for the film, and I had no complaints. As far as the special effects (Gordon's mainstay was the use of rear-projection enlargement technology), they were fairly clever (and cheap) at the time, but don't necessarily hold up well so many years later, so it's probably best not to get too hung up on that aspect, otherwise you might miss the fun. I did learn a number of things from this film, including the following;
1. When you're six inches tall you're pretty much at the bottom of the food chain.
2. John Agar really seems to hate marionettes.
3. If you're six inches tall you can keep a fifty pound angry canine at bay with a nail.
4. If you're six inches tall clothes taken from dolls whose dimension are nowhere near your own will fit perfectly without alterations.
5. Apparently you can make a living putting on marionette shows.
6. Never leave people you've miniaturized alone for any amount of time otherwise they're sure to plot against you.
7. If you've perfected a process to miniaturize people just so you can keep them around as friends, it's probably not the best idea to keep them on display where anyone can see them even if they are in a state of suspended animation.
8. Scientists don't often realize the vast, commercial, financial, and humanitarian possibilities of their inventions, no matter how obvious they may seem (I'd guess a machine that could shrink and enlarge both inanimate and animate objects could not only do a lot of good but make someone a whole lot of dough).
9. Seems to me the ability to put people into states of suspended animation by use of a pill you've invented might be worth something, but then what the hell do I know?
10. A rear-projection enlarged street rat chasing a pair of six inch people is more funny that frightening, at least by today's standards.
All in all not my favorite Bert I. Gordon feature (I'd have to go with either The Cyclops or The Amazing Colossal Man), but it's still a good deal of fun of the economy B movie kind.
The picture, presented in fullscreen (1.33:1), looks very clean on this DVD, and exhibits only a couple of minor flaws. As far as the Dolby Digital mono audio, available in English, Spanish, and French, it came through very well, with no complaints. The only extras included are an original theatrical trailer along with Spanish and French subtitles.
Cookieman108
By the way, I'd appreciate a DVD release of Gordon's The Food of the Gods (1976)...as I write this it's still not available on the DVD format, and that just doesn't seem right.
DVD Review: JOHN HOYT
Summary: 5 Stars
For all of you who have seen Attack Of The Puppet People. John Hoyt also appeared twice on Leave It To Beaver, first as a clothing store salesman and next as a man who sells accordions. He was also in the Twilight Zone story Lateness Of The Hour as Dr. Loren who has a robot daughter named Jayna. and he was also in The Man With The X-Ray Eyes as a doctor who doesnt approve of Ray Milland's medical procedures. He was also an alien creature in The Bellero Shield, a 1964 Outer Limits Story starring Martin LandauDVD Review: Bert I. Gordon Strikes Again!
Summary: 4 Stars
Bert I. Gordon, the producer known for alternately making people and animals really big or small, was the brains behind this film, which is one of the best of the genre. It is a Black and White production from 1958 featuring John Hoyt as the mad doll maker, John Agar in his typical hero role, and a fairly bland performance by June Kenney as the love interest. The plot is fairly typical, Hoyt kidnaps people and shrinks them to doll size so he will never be lonely; after authorities get onto his trail he loses control of his life and the dolls. The movie is actually very well done, and the split screen shots are pretty decent, particularly of the cats and dogs. I was initially leaning toward a five star appraisal of the film, but the ending is somewhat abrupt and anticlimactic, so I give the film four stars for being an entertaining B-Movie genre period piece, and also for the performances of the two male leads. John Hoyt is genuinely creepy in his role of Mr. Franz the doll maker, and John Agar was born to play the hero in period pieces like this and the later "Zontar, The Thing From Venus", a film that definitely needs to be released on DVD soon.
My favorite scene in the film is when Agar and Kenney go to the drive in to see "War of the Colossal Beast", another Bert I. Gordon 'human of improbable size' film with an astronaut who grows to enormous proportions. Don't miss it; it's a B-Movie classic!
Description of Attack of the Puppet People
After threatening audiences with The Amazing Colossal Man, director-producer-special-effects "whiz" Bert I. Gordon again proves that size does matter in his revamp of The Incredible Shrinking Man for American International Pictures. John Hoyt, the wheelchair-bound tycoon from When Worlds Collide, is Mr. Franz, a lonely doll maker who reduces anyone who abandons him to doll-size. How Franz, a former puppeteer, could accomplish this scientific marvel is never explained, but Franz's collection (who, in an oddly unsettling scene, are forced to participate in a marionette show) include his salesman Bob (John Agar, by now an established B-movie staple) and secretary (June Kenny, from Gordon's Earth vs. the Spider) as well as a handful of strangers (including Ken Miller from I Was a Teenage Werewolf and the Queen of Outer Space herself, Laurie Mitchell). As always, Gordon's limitations overshadow his intentions, and his direction and atrocious effects (AIP monster maker Paul Blaisdell is credited with "special design"), as well as the script by SF hack George Worthing Yates (Them!), undo the film's few laudable aspects, chief among them Hoyt's sympathetic performance. However, his self-promotional skills are topnotch--Bob and Sally see Colossal Man on their drive-in date. Puppet People won't impress younger audiences, but parents raised on a diet of drive-in fodder will appreciate its pulpy plot and solid genre cast. Filmed as The Fantastic Puppet People, it was retitled after being paired on a double bill with War of the Colossal Beast. MGM's full-screen print looks excellent, with only mild speckling. --Paul GaitaGeneral DVDs
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