ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (1958)
By Terry Smith, 04-19-09
The tag line for Attack of the Puppet, people, is “Terror Comes in Small Packages.” But don’t let the title of this 1958 ‘cash-in’ on the box office success of The Incredible Shrinking Man fool you - the puppet people are not doing the attacking, as much as they are being attacked!
You see, the incredibly deranged doll-maker Mr. Franz (John Hoyt) has a crippling fear of being alone, but he’s not agoraphobic - he’s just fucking creepy. Mr. Franz is an awkward cross between Mr. [Fred] Rodgers and a Nazi scientist. I was wrong when I said he’s creepy - he’s super fucking creepy. So, as a remedy, he creates an apparatus that shrinks humans down to, you guessed it, doll size [“So…do ya like Barbie?”].
We start this story with a Brownie troop visiting “Dolls Inc” and when one of the girls touches Franz’ “special dolls” the girl is handled by Miss Hall, Franz’ girl Friday. In the next scene we witness the hiring of a new office girl, Sally (June Kenney), who has the initial urge to get the fuck out of there, but is talked into employment. A few scenes later, we meet Bob Westley (John Agar), the self-proclaimed best salesmen in the universe, and he immediately [and with all the charm of a date-rapist] takes to seducing Sally. Eventually, Sally and Bob fall in love and Bob pressures Sally to quit, telling her he’ll tell Franz. Franz reacts poorly and shirks Bon and tells Sally that Bob had to go away and it’d be better if she just forgot him. Of course, she’s disinclined and goes to the police, claiming Franz turned Bob into a doll. Of course, no one believes her.
SPOILERS!!
The pair soon finds out about his collection of dolls as they are shrunken to join the collection and watch as the others have to do stuff for him [to keep him company]. The thing I thought was bizarre was that Fanzie would throw parties for the wee-folk, including booze and snacks, but in return he makes one girl sing, and do other [non-sexual] stuff. However, when shrunken, that little troublemaking bitch Sally, and her fiancé Bob, decide to escape, and they re-enlarge!, but the doll man cometh and shrinks Bob. They convince everyone to call for help but the cantankerous police Sergeant Paterson cannot her they wee-little voices.
He does however, based on people Franz knows disappearing, start to investigate Franz, and turns up the heat on Franz so much that Franz decides to [tell the little folk] he plans on killing them all, so he won’t get busted. But not before he throws a big party and [in a bizarre scene] has them perform Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By the time we get to the ending the notorious B.O.B [and Sally] manages to escape to Franz’s workshop. Before Franz catches up to them the pair return themselves to normal size and flee to the cops.
Oddly, at normal size, there is no confrontation scene with Bob, Sally and Franz. They just, well…they just leave with no ass-whooping’ being dispatched [ah…the 50’s]. The one cool twist is we never see the fate of the other wee-folk play out, so their fates’ are never revealed. This flick was funny and campy, with sexual and societal overtones with a good representation of the beginnings of CGI from the 1950’s, and it’s worth a viewing by full size eyes.
One Comment on “ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (1958)”
Comment:
May 23rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
John Agar was married to a REAL WEE LASSIE named Shirley Temple. She divorced him because he was an alcoholic and used to smack little Miss Curly Top around. True Story.