Attack of the Puppet People

Starring:John Agar, John Hoyt, June Kenney, Michael Mark, Jack Kosslyn, Marlene Willis, Ken Miller, Laurie Mitchell, Scott Peters (II), Susan Gordon, June Jocelyn, Jean Moorhead, Hank Patterson, Hal Bogart, Troy Patterson, Bill Giorgio, George Diestel, Jamie Forster, Mark Lowell, Glenn Langan
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

Description

ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE: Original Theatrical Trailer

Customer Reviews:

Size matters.......2006-11-25

When you think of the great directors of American cinema, the name Bert I. Gordon does not come to mind. A creator of cheesy science fiction B-movies, many of his films dealt with giant animals (grasshoppers in The Beginning of the End, ants in Empire of the Ants, etc.) or people (like with War of the Colossal Beast). With Village of the Giants, he revisits this theme with a twist; Attack of the Puppet People, however, depicts the reverse idea.

In Attack of the Puppet People, June Kenny plays a new secretary for a kindly old dollmaker who somehow has created a shrinking machine. He is sort of like a psychotically delusional Mr. Rogers who seems really nice but hates having people leave him, to the point where he shrinks them to doll-size and puts them into suspended animation. Despite the title, the "puppet people" don't do any real attacking; instead, they are merely intent on getting restored to their proper sizes. With low budget actors and effects, this film is far from great but does have its moments.

Village of the Giants, however, features some big name actors in early roles, most notably Ronny (Ron) Howard and Beau Bridges. Veering away from the more "serious" films, this movie is more comedy that horror. Howard is a preadolescent genius who accidentally creates a growth formula, which is stolen and ingested by Bridges and his friends. After becoming giants, they become the ultimate teen rebels and try to enforce laws against adults. The effects may be poor, but the movie itself is an amiable bit of a fluff, more interested in showing teenage girls jiggle to nice but forgettable tunes than with any sort of coherent plot.

I've always had an affection for Village of the Giants since seeing it as a small kid (and not since). Like some of the sillier Disney films (particularly the early Kurt Russell sci-fi comedies), they don't get better as you get older. They may be deeply flawed movies, but I still enjoyed them for what they were, so I am giving them a low four stars; it may be more than they truly merit, but with these sorts of movies, fun always trumps quality.

Average customer rating:

"You funny, little people...I wonder why it is you always hate me so at first."
JOHN HOYT
Bert I. Gordon Strikes Again!
very nice print of a B-movie classic, few dvd features
Puppet People DVD Okay. Movie pure Mr. B.I.G.

Attack of the Puppet People
Starring: John Agar , John Hoyt , June Kenney , Michael Mark , and Jack Kosslyn
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

The Monster That Challenged the World/It! The Terror From Beyond Space
The Crawling Eye (Widescreen European Edition)
Invisible Invaders / Journey to the Seventh Planet
Beginning of the End (Special Edition)
Cult Classics: Earth vs. the Spider/War of the Colossal Beast

ASIN: B0000558NJ
Release Date: 2001-02-20

Amazon.com

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 Gaita

Customer Reviews:

"You funny, little people...I wonder why it is you always hate me so at first.".......2006-07-07

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.

JOHN HOYT.......2004-03-18

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 Landau

Bert I. Gordon Strikes Again!.......2004-03-03

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!

very nice print of a B-movie classic, few dvd features.......2003-06-19

This was a drive-in movie classic from the late 50s. John Hoyt plays the somewhat-benevolent mad scientist with pathos as he shrinks people he likes, stores them in a display case of dolls, and brings them out at night for entertainment.

If you enjoy cheesy B-movies, or if you have fond memories of this or other old b&w 'scary' movies, you will enjoy this nice print of Bert Gordon's (The Amazing Colossal Man) classic, with little people dialing a (rotary!) phone, being chased by a dog, and acting out a scene in a puppet theatre.

DVD extras are sparse: a trailer, and subtitles in French or Spanish -- hey, it's educational!!

Puppet People DVD Okay. Movie pure Mr. B.I.G........2002-09-28

Bert I. Gordon (aka Mr. B.I.G.) decided that enlarging things had been overdone so he decided to shrink his cast in Attack of the Puppet People (aka Fantastic Puppet People). You hafta love when Gordon has the two leads go to a drive-in to see his Amazing Colossal Man. John Hoyt plays a lonely doll maker who has invented a machine that shrinks people to doll size. Hoyt keeps his 'dolls' in suspended animation stored in glass tubes and only brings them out when he wants to play.

Not a bad little B film. John Agar is his usual B Movie self, but June Kenney is really awful as his love interest. John Hoyt gives a sweet, warped performance as the lonely doll maker. Truly one of his best efforts.

MGM has used a decent copy of the film for this DVD. As is typical with MGM Mignite series, the only extra is the trailer. Hey, MGM, how about a feature commentary once in a while?

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