Bert I. Gordon certainly capitalised on the happy coincidence of his initials, styling himself Mr B.I.G. and making a string of films about oversized humans (The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), War of the Colossal Beast (1958), Village of the Giants (1965)) and wildlife (King Dinosaur (1955), Beginning of the End (1957), Earth vs the Spider (1958), The Food of the Gods (1976), Empire of the Ants (1977)), interspersed here and there with a handful of films not overly concerned – if at all – with giants of any kind (Tormented (1960), The Magic Sword (1962), Picture Mommy Dead (1966), Necromancy (1972) et al). In 1958 he released Attack of the Puppet People on a double bill with War of the Colossal Beast (1958), which took a different approach to his favourite theme – in this one, the main characters are shrunk down to Six Inches Tall (the UK release title).

Shot as The Fantastic Puppet People and inspired by the success of The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), it tells the lively tale of the seemingly kindly doll factory owner, Mr Franz (John Hoyt) and his new secretary Sally Reynolds (June Kenney). Sally falls for vising traveling salesman, Bob Westley (John Agar) and several weeks later, accepts his proposal of marriage, planning to leave Franz’s employment and settle down with Bob. But the next day, Franz tells her that Bob has left on a business trip and a new doll has appeared in his little museum at the office, one that looks remarkably like Bob.

In one of the film’s many hard-to-swallow moments, Sally leaps to the conclusion that Franz is miniaturising people. She’s right, but how she reaches that outlandish conclusion beggars belief. Certainly local cop Sergeant Paterson (Jack Kosslyn) is having none of it and when Sally tries to leave, Franz miniaturises her too, using a machine of his own invention – again one is left wondering how a doll maker has managed to develop such a remarkable and ground-breaking device entirely on his own. No matter, Sally and Bob are reunited, join a group of other miniaturised victims and are forced to entertain the lonely Franz who just wants to keep a collection of tiny friends, including them taking part in a puppet show based on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Although it’s a likable enough bit of fluff, Attack of the Puppet People is like a lot of Gordon‘s work – a serviceable enough idea in search of characters, logic and a decent storyline. Characters jump to ludicrous conclusions that simply don’t hold water and Gordon‘s script doesn’t see fit to explain some of its more outré developments, like where that miniaturisation machine came from. Franz himself isn’t terribly well played by Hoyt but he does at least try to invest him with a sense of loneliness and tragedy that the script tends to undermine at every opportunity. The ending particularly lets him down, his cries of “don’t leave me, I’ll be alone…” coming across more as self-pitying than genuinely heartfelt.

But it’s an affable enough bit of silliness, and Gordon certainly made a lot worse. There are in-jokes (Sally and Bob go to the drive-in to watch Gordon‘s The Amazing Colossal Man, the sequel to which, War of the Colossal Beast, punters in 1958 had either just watched or were about to see as part of the original double bill), there are lots of variable special effects (some are very good, but some of the back projections leave something to be desired) and the oversized props are a lot of fun, just as they would be in subsequent such ventures like the Doctor Who serial Planet of Giants (1964) or The Avengers: Mission… Highly Improbable (1967) and Land of the Giants which did it week in week out for two seasons between 1968 and 1970.

But it all rattles along quite nicely until it comes to a disappointing climax which feels very abrupt, and which leaves the fate of several of the miniaturised people unresolved. It comes to another halt part way through for a bit of dancing and a song performed by Laurie Mitchell, perhaps inevitably titled Living Doll, though it has nothing to do with the Cliff Richard song that would actually be a hit (unlike this effort, though it’s more entertaining than the film’s relentless jazz/rock ‘n’ roll hybrid score) a year later. The film is completely nuts but somehow manages to be strangely endearing despite the fact that it never really drags itself any higher than Gordon‘s usual standards.

It’s the sort of film where the trivia is more interesting than the plot. Look out, for example, for Gordon‘s daughter Susan as one of the girl scouts who visits Franz’s factor at the start of the film – she was a last-minute stand-in for a young actor that failed to turn up and she went on to appear in three more of her father’s films, The Boy and the Pirates (1960), Tormented and Picture Mommy Dead as well as several television episodes. And then there’s the film’s odd connection to that great American political scandal Watergate. Lookout Alfred C. Baldwin III failed to spot the police car that pulled up in front of the complex in time for its driver and passenger to arrest five men in the middle of the burglary. The reason for his distraction? He was watching Attack of the Puppet People on the television and was too engrossed to realise what was going on…

Crew
Directed by: Bert I. Gordon; © copyright MCMLVIII [1958] Alta Vista Productions; American International Pictures [opening credits]. An American-International picture [closing credits]. James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff present; Produced by: Bert I. Gordon; Screenplay by: George Worthing Yates; Story by: Bert I. Gordon; Director of Photography: Ernest Laszlo; Editorial Supervisor: Ronald Sinclair; Music Composed and Conducted by: Albert Glasser; Men’s Costumer: Chuck Arrico; Ladies’ Costumer: Pauline Lewis; Make-up Artist: Phillip Scheer; Hair Stylist: Kay Shea; Special Technical Effects: Bert I. Gordon; Special Devices: Charles Duncan; Special Designs: Paul and Jackie Blaisdell

Cast
John Agar (Bob Westley); John Hoyt (Mr Franz); June Kenny (Sally Reynolds); Michael Mark (Emil); Jack Kosslyn (Sergeant Paterson); Marlene Willis (Laurie); Ken Miller (Stan); Laurie Mitchell (Georgia Lane); Scott Peters (Mac); Susan Gordon (Agnes); June Jocelyn (Brownie leader); Jean Moorhead (Janet); Hank Patterson (janitor); Hal Bogart (special delivery man); Troy Patterson (elevator operator); Bill Giorgio (delivery man); George Diestel (police receptionist); Jamie Forster (Ernie Larson); Harold Franklin [real name: Mark Lowell] (salesman)

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