Attack of the Puppet People
by Bert I. Gordon
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DVD Cover Information
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)
Movie Reviews of Attack of the Puppet People
Movie 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.
Summary 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 GaitaCult Movies DVD Video
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