Weirdhouse Cinema: Attack of the Puppet People

Puppet People. I think a pretty obvious cash in on the popularity of The Incredible Shrinking Man, but it's not like a Shrinking Man Incredible Shrinking Man rip off. There are other also elements of Doctor Cyclops in there. There are also some I think some clear there's a clear

homage to nineteen thirty five's Bride of Frankenstein. It's certainly not a rip off of The Incredible Shrinking Man in that it doesn't have any real similarity to the story, but I would say probably is in that they are trying to make a quick book on the idea of shrink movies right after there had just been a really big one on the other hand, Oh no, no pun intended.

On the other hand, Bertie Gordon, I think it was a perennial fascination of his to make movies about big things getting small or small things getting big, Yeah, which

are essentially the same exercise. Like there's when you get down to it, you know, what's the difference between a movie in which a man fights a giant crab or a movie in which a wait, let me now, I've lost my own train of thought in this What is the difference between a movie in which a normal size crab fights a tiny man or a normal sized man fights a giant crab. You have just discovered a Galilean relativity, that magnitude really only means something in the context of

a frame of reference. Yeah, yeah, so yeah. There's a kind of baseline physical profundity to a lot of these blow up movies and shrink movies. But that is the element brought over from The Incredible Shrinking Man. What is not brought over is the sort of the character complexity and the the I don't know all the wisdom and insights of the Incredible Shrinking Man, which, if you haven't

heard last week's episode. I do recommend you go back and listen to that one, because I think Rob, you and I were both It's fair to say shocked by how interesting and thoughtful The Incredible Shrinking Man was as a story. Absolutely yeah, yeah, just just really solid and thoughtful. Yeah yeah, far more thoughtful movie than anticipated. I would say that this movie as well, was more thoughtful than anticipated.

I had a much lower bar for this one. I was expecting just pure spectacle, pure cash in, and I mean that would have been fine. I was looking forward to that experience. It is more thoughtful than I expected, but not necessarily in ultimately constructive ways. No, I'd say the thoughts here do not really seem to build on one another as they did an Incredible Shrinking Man. It's more like it's a shrink movie. And occasionally there are

some thoughts, yes, but I know what you mean. Also by comparing this to James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein, one of the great monster movies of all time, because you know the universal Frankenstein series. With each movie it has to one up the Mad Scientists. So the original Frankenstein has the titular Frankenstein, the mad scientist who makes the creature, and they got to get an even more mad scientist for the sequel. So they come up with doctor Septimus Praetorious,

a fantastic villain, and his hobby is making homunculi. So he has these little jars with tiny people in them, including like a little like king and a little queen, and I think the little king is always trying to get out of his jar into the little Queen's jar. Yeah, so we wacky sequence, and I like, is that a great classic monster movie. But another strange alleged fact about Attack of the Puppet People is that, if reports are to be believed, this film played an unintentional role in

American history. And the role is this, Okay, it is June seventeenth, nineteen seventy two, the night of the Watergate break in, So agents of the Nixon White House have sent out burglars to break into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the in the Watergate Complex in Washington, d C. They're they're trying to do some espionage. They were there to I think like photographed documents and maybe plant bugs and stuff. So that's the famous burglary that

kicks off Watergate. But the thing that was the sort of like set the fuse burning on everybody finding out about the Watergate break in was that the burglars caught that night, and the burglars had a spotter who was supposed to radio them on their walkie talkies and let them know if the police showed up so they could

get out of there. But according to an article called the Bartender's Tale, How the Watergate Burglars Got Caught by Craig Shirley, published in June twenty twelve in The Washingtonian, this spotter, who was across the street at the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge. His name was Alfred C. Baldwin the Third, did not notice the arrival of police because he was too absorbed in watching a movie on TV. And that

movie was Bert Eye Gordon's Attack of the Puppet People. So, if this is to be believed, if Attack of the Puppet People had been even slightly less amusing of a film, the Watergate burglars might not have been caught and American history could have unraveled in a very different way. Yeah. What a strange place for alternate universe is to split around Burt Eye Gordon's Attack of the Puppet People. What scene do you think it was that when the police showed up and this guy could not be bothered to

look out the window. Oh well, there plenty of candidates for scenes that couldn't have been at It had to have been, in my mind, it had to have been the various special effects sequences or various scenes in which miniature people are averting about. You don't think he was glued to the TV during one of the many elevator scenes or the scenes of mister Franz receiving a phone call saying that he should come out to the lobby to meet someone. Yeah, yeah, probably not one of those scenes,

but it's worth noting on that. Yeah, the Attack of the Puppet People is a movie that you don't expect it to necessarily grab you right away. You gotta let it set in, you gotta let it get through. It needs to travel to another location before it it kicks in with the spectacle. Okay, I got another beef with this movie, and this is not going to turn into just right on Attack of the Puppet People because highly amusing film. I'm gonna say overall, this is what I

do recommend for be cinema purposes. But this is one where the title and the poster just lie. They just lie to you. The title is attack of the puppet People. The only plausible candidates for the titular puppet people are not puppets. They're people who have been shrunken to the size of dolls. And these doll people do not attack anyone except in one instance where the thing they attack is a puppet. So the title would only make sense

if it was attack of the puppet by people. Yeah, and the poster, to your point, shows multiple little people wielding a knife like it's a medieval battering ram against what. I guess we were talking about this before we recorded. We're not sure that we assume this is supposed to be a dog, but it looks kind of like a Tasmanian devil, yeah, or like a like a wolverine or something. I don't know what this animal is. And the poster tagline is doll dwarves versus the crushing giant beasts. Again

highly inaccurate, completely misleading. There is a There are brief scenes towards the end, this is not even a major part of the movie, fleeting moments of the puppet people being threatened by animals, including a rat and a dog, but they're never like in the same shot, and they're over in a few seconds. Yeah, it's not like I mean, I guess what they were going for is like, hey, do you remember those great sequences in The Incredible Shrinking

Man where he fights a spider or a housecat? Will prepare for more of that in Attack of the Puppet People. I guess they figure by the time you get to those scenes. Most theaters have a policy where it's too late to get the money for your ticket back. Yeah. Well, well, let's let's let the people know what's in store for them. Here, Joe, what's your elevator pitch for Attack of the Puppet People?

All right, people keep disappearing at the offices of Dolls Incorporated, a small company run by the eccentric old mister Franz. The mailman vanishes without a trace. His former secretary was never heard from again. Also, you are not allowed to play with the freakishly lifelike dolls in glass tubes over in the corner display case. That's it, all right, Let's

listen to the trailer idea. John agar is the nice looking young man introduced by John Whyte to pretty June Kenny, and when boy meets girl, well they do what comes naturally. But the loss of love has made this mild mannered man into a maniac. A maniac who wants to make you a plaything, and the fear awsome fact is he knows how to do it. Why I'm your friend? All right? Well, if you want to watch this one before proceeding with the rest of the episode, it's widely available for digital

purchase in streaming. You can also pick it up on DVD as part of the MGM Midnight Movie series as a two pac with Village of the Giants, and I think it's also available as a straight up blue ray. I would also add that, as of today, I think watching this movie is the best way to see unedited scenes from the amazing Colossal Man. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's again.

Kind of a kind of a shame. I'm gonna be optimistic though, and hope that the reason for this is because somebody's just about to put it out in some sort of restored special edition blue ray, especially since to get into the connections here on this one, the director the producer story credit as well goes to Bert Eye Gordon, who lived nineteen twenty two through twenty twenty three. He passed away earlier this month at the age of one

hundred years old. Right, So we sort of ended up here by saying we wanted to do a Bert Eye Gordon movie, and we were originally going to do The Amazing Colossal Man, but as you noted, that's like it's not on disc and then that led us to The Incredible Shrinking Man, and then somehow we ended up back with Bert Eye Gordon for the rip off of The Incredible Shrinking Man. Right, so we've come back around to Burt Eye Gordon before the month is out, Bert Eye Gordon,

b Ig, Mister Big. Those were his initials. That was his nickname because he did a number of films involving big bugs, big humans, or humans so small that everything else seems big. In the case of this picture. He was an icon of nineteen fifties beast cinema. His earliest credit is producer on nineteen fifty four Serpent Island, but he moved into directing and fighting with the follow up nineteen fifty five King Dinosaur, and then in nineteen fifty

seven he began busting out his Giant Man movies. The first Giant man movie did was nineteen fifty seven's The Cyclops, about an area of Mexico where giant radiated animals and a twenty five foot tall man with a disfigured face, one eye and savage instincts, you know, rule the countryside. Okay, I don't know that I've ever watched The Cyclops in its entirety, but that one has Lon Cheney Junior in it. The same year he also gave us The Amazing Colossal Man.

This is another atomic enlargement tale, but one that explores the emotions of a rational human being at the center of the change, played by Glenn Langan in a role that I always liked. Again, would love to come back and do this film when we have a better way to watch it. It's maybe we'll discuss this a little bit when we get to the part in this movie

where they're watching The Amazing Colossal Man. In nineteen fifty eight, he followed this film up with a sequel, War of the Colossal Beast, in which they say that Glenn survived, but he's now disfigured and savage, played by a different actor, and they dress him up in the same Cyclops mask. From the earlier picture, so that kind of completes his Giant Man trilogy. But then he did a Giant Spider picture titled Spider or Earth Versus the Spider, and then

this movie Attack of the Puppet People. Wait, so you could say that in fifty eight he may have had two different movies, both inspired by the incredible Shrinking Man, this one where it shrinks humans, but also maybe Earth Versus the Spider because it involves humans fighting a giant spider puppet. I suppose, so, though I guess Giant Spider. I mean, when you start thinking of like a full list of Giant Spider movies, they're quite a number of them.

Gordon remained active throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and even came back to direct twenty fifteen Secret of a Psychopath while in his nineties. Of his post Puppet People films, I'd say some of the more notable ones include nineteen sixties Tormented. This one was featured on MST. It has Joe Turkle in it. Nineteen sixty two is the Magic Sword, also an MST three K classic. This one starred Basil Rathbone,

Estelle Wynwood and Gary Lockwood. Very fun sword and sorcery sort of movie, you know, very much for the kids. I've never seen it, but this one does look fun. I considered it for the show. Oh yeah, we could totally do magic swords someday. It's it's it's a lot of fun. And the MST three K episode was was great fun as well. Nineteen sixty five Village of the Giants also an MST three K episode. This one had Tommy Kirk, bow Bridges, Ron Howard and more Joe Turkle.

This one kind of attack of the Killer Teenagers. They're like giants, sort of sacop teens in it. Yeah, yeah, I believe so, and I yeah. And this one if I didn't mention already, this one was also a future in an MST three K. But I have a less clear picture of this one. It may be only solid ones. Nineteen sixty six is Picture Mommy Dead. This had Don Amici Jajaga Boor in it. And this is an evil Stepmon film. Nineteen seventy two is Necromancy starring Orson Wells.

Orson Wells, Yeah, Orson Wells with for a quick payday on this one, and it's not supposed to be very good. Every July, Peas grow there and then seventy six Food of the Gods, a giant killer animal film based on a work by H. G. Wells in the nineteen seventy seven Empire of the Ants, A pretty late in the game giant Ants film based on Wells, starring Joan Collins. Haven't seen it, heard very conflicting reviews. Some say it's a hoot, others say it is a it is a

kind of gross bore. It's certainly no Phase four, all right. George Worthing Yates screenplay credit on this so of nineteen oh one through nineteen seventy five, So it may have been Gordon's story, but someone had to put it together into a screenplay, and I suppose that's where Yates comes in.

His writing credits go back to the twenties and thirties, with a bunch of the adventure films, including a nineteen thirty eight Lone Ranger film and a nineteen forty seven Sindbad the Sailor film starring Douglas Fairbanks, Junior, Marine O'Hara, and Anthony Quinn. But in nineteen fifty four you see his credits take a sharp turn down the atomic turn

Bike with the Giant Ant movie Them. Afterwards, he worked on fifty five Conquest of Space and it came from Beneath the Sea, fifty sixes Earth Versus the Flying Saucers, and he did some uncredited work apparently on the amazing Colossal Man. Oh, these are some respected sci fi movies them and Earth Versus Flying Saucers and stuff. Yeah, along with puppet People. He worked on War of the Colossal Beast, followed by fifty eight Spacemaster X seven and Gordon's The

Spider and Tormented. I'm also very intrigued. I haven't seen this, but I'm intrigued by this nineteen fifty eighth film that he was a writer on Frankenstein nineteen seventy, which indeed is supposed to take place in nineteen seventy and stars Boris Karloff as Baron Frankenstein. I would love to know what writers in nineteen fifty eight thought nineteen seventy would be like. I think I read that they originally were thinking it was not quite nineteen seventy, it was just

a few years into the future. But they're like, nope, this is two futurists. We got to bump it up even more. By nineteen seventy, every family will own a car the size of a battleship. All right, let's get into the cast here. John Agar is back. This, of course, was the star of Tarantula, which we've covered not too long ago. He plays Bob Wesley. Agar lived nineteen twenty one through two thousand and two. Longtime American actor who appeared in a bunch of films from forty eight through

two thousand and one. You can basically divide his work into two categories, the war movies in the Westerns, and then on the other side, the B movies, as we talked about in our Tarantula episode and Who. When it comes to the war movies and the West Arns, he worked with folks like John Wayne. But in the B movie category he's in stuff like The Mole People from fifty six, Revenge of the Creature from fifty five, and Hand of Death from sixty two. It's John Agar. I mean,

it's exactly what you would expect. He's total cornball in this, but I would not change it for anything. It's got to be John Agar. Yeah, I mean he's the dependable lead. You know. I can imagine if you're a director. Not only were would you be happy to have him, you'd wish you had a whole suitcase full of them. Oh I see what you did there. Yeah, all right. We also have our our villainous character here, or evil dollmaker

slash puppetmaster slash shrinkinader. This is mister Franz, played by John Hoyt, who Lift nineteen oh five through nineteen ninety one. You know, I have some questions about how this character is written, but I think John Hoyt is actually much better than the part deserves. Really, he brings an interesting take on the role. I mean, so, this is an inherently a creepy villain, a guy who shrinks people down

into dolls and wants to control their every move. But John Hoyt, I think, makes the interesting decision of making him ultimately even creepier by giving him very gentle, mild mannerisms and making it seem like, oh, how could this

guy hurt anyone? Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Like, it's the kind of role that, by all rights, should have gone to somebody like John Carradine, who, okay, would have physically had a similar presence on the screen and would have seemed a nice, nice and tall looking or at least thin enough that he looks tall in comparison to our shrunk characters. But this generally does not come off as lovable. But yeah, Hoyt's take on this character like you can't help but buy into the heart of

the character at times and ways. And I'm not sure how much of this is his performance and how much of it is the script. At times it feels like too much effort is made to make you feel for this guy who is a kidnapping and human experimenting villain. Yes so. Hoyt was an American actor best known for When Worlds Collide from fifty one, Spartacus from nineteen sixty, and Brute Force from forty seven. He has a lot of credits going back to in the nineteen forties lots

of TV. He acted in such films The sixty three'es X, The Man with the X ray I's nineteen sixty fourth, The Time Travelers, and nineteen seventy four's Flesh Gordon. His many TV roles include bits On at the original Battlestar Galactica, The Six Million Dollars Man, Koltchak, The Knights Stalker, Planet to the Apes, the TV series Hogan's Heroes Get Smart,

The Monkeys, the Original Outer Limits, and much more. This is not really a one to one comparison, but I kept thinking about Annie Wilkes from Stephen King's Misery with this guy. You know, the way that he's without you know, the overt violence and aggression you see from Annie and Wilkes and Misery, but you know he's he's that kind of like I love you and therefore I must keep you. I'm doing this for you. I'm I'm I'm saving you

from the world, that sort of thing. Yeah. He at one point he gives a speech about how, look, you'll never have to pay taxes again now that I've made you into a doll. But as sure, he never has to break out the sledgehammer. Um, he just sort of his worst threat really is like, well, I'll just put you back in the tube for a long time. Yeah, yeah, it's And in fact, I kept thinking that he would have to squash somebody to make an example out of them, and that would you know, up the antie for making

him a believable villain, but they never did. Still, really really good performance. Yeah, kudos, Yeah, thumbs up. John Hoyt. Now, really our main character in this outside of the evil puppet Master here is Sally Reynolds played by June Kinney who lived nineteen thirty three through twenty twenty one. I think if you look up on Jenue in the dictionary,

you would get a picture of this character. The character is someone who are Rives sort of like bride eyed and innocent and unsuspecting of anyone and then is confronted with a sinister plot of shrink Nation. Yeah, given the limits of this role, I think she's She's really good in it, you know, she's especially when she's up there with John Agar and Jagar you know, again solid dependable, but his character as well discuss as we get into the plot there's not a lot really to latch onto

there either. And I don't know, you can see she's one of thos, one of those those performances with Jim Kinney where I feel like you see the wheels the gears turning in her head even when you wouldn't have to for a film like this anyway. She was a fifties B movie starlet that was active from the early fifties to the early to mid sixties. Her films include fifty eight The Spider, nineteen sixty one Bloodlust, and nineteen fifty seven's Teenage Doll. Ironically enough, does she play a

doll in that too? I don't think so. I forget exactly what the ride up on Team n Doll was, but I don't think it's the Shrink film all right, Just a few other players have none. I'm not going to go through all the Shrink characters and the side characters, but there's a character named Stan. He's one of the belief the newlyweds that have been shrunk, played by Ken Miller,

who lived nineteen thirty one through twenty seventeen. A notable youth actor of the day, his credits include fifty seven's I Was a Teenage Werewolf in nineteen sixty four Surf Party. Then we have a character by the name of Georgia Lane played by Laurie Mitchell, who lived nineteen twenty eight

through twenty eighteen. Model turned actor, best remembered as Queen Yelana from nineteen fifty eight's Queen of Outer Space, which also starred Jean Jacoboor with a screenplayed by Charles Beaumont, who we've talked about before a lot of connection to the classic Twilight Zone. All right, we have a little girl wander into We have multiple little children wandering and ask questions about the dolls, which is not surprising most

of the movie takes place at a doll shop. But one of these little girls is played by Susan Gordon, who plays a little girl named Agnes. This was Bert's daughter, lived nineteen forty nine through twenty eleven. She was apparently a last minute replacement for another child and this was

their first acting gig. Apparently her this is one of those situations where her parents didn't really want her to get into acting, but you know, she kept she kept at it, and she ended up acting into the late nineteen sixties, with appearances and such titles as Tormented, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Gunsmoke, The Original Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and My Three Sons And finally, the music on this picture is by Albert Glasser, who lived nineteen sixteen through

nineteen ninety eight, film composer who worked in the forty fifties and sixties mostly. He apparently started off as a Warner Brothers music department copyist, but moved up and made a name for himself mostly in B movies, and he worked for Burt Iye Gordon several times. Well. Speaking of the music, one of the first thing when we were watching this, first thing that made my eyes light up with joy was when in the credits you realized that this movie has a theme song like a song, a

song popular music song written for the film. The title song is called Your My Living Doll, music by Albert Glasser, who you just mentioned in Don Ferris, lyrics by Henry Shrage Shrage, I don't know how you say that, and then sun by cast member Marlene Willis. That's right. She lived nineteen forty two to nineteen eighty two. She's yeah, she's she's in the film playing Laurie, one of the shrunk people. This is only one of I think two

different film roles that she did. But she has a lot of variety show appearances from from back in the day. So you show up on variety show. So I guess we would think of her primarily as a as a musician who also did some acting gigs here and there. So we're talking about a shrink movie that has a song with lyrics about being a doll. It's called your my living doll, and they sing it in the movie. Yes,

that's classy. Attack of the doll people would would have been far more fitting, right, It would have matched up with the song, and yeah, it would have been a little more honest. Where does the puppet thing come from? Well as well, discott. I mean, they do share the stage with some puppets, and puppets are part of the plot. But yeah, all right, we can get to that. Oh but another thing I wanted to note is there are there are puppet people who we never meet in the film.

We see them in a glass display case in the office. We also see them in the credits. So as the credits are rolling, we see people in glass tubes appearing across the screen, and I think only of a couple of the ones in the credits ever show up in the film. Now, are the ones in the credits refresh my memory? Are they moving at all? Or is it seemingly the same special effect that they use for the people in the actual film? They they are not moving.

I think there's it's the same effect. I think, yeah, which I took to be just two D paper cutouts of the people that were carefully held in such a way that you would not reveal that they were two d to the camera, yes, which sometimes made for like awkward hand posture with respect to the camera, like you're you're holding this tube of John Agar and you're staring directly at his ear and realizing that it's really yeah. Okay. So we open on a shot of a tall office building.

I don't know what city this is supposed to be in, maybe New York, but we learned this is the Tilford Building and inside there is a Brownie troop. So girl Scout troop is getting off the elevator and they're headed for a visit to an office called Dolls Incorporated. Inside there, the troop leader meets with the secretary. He was a

very friendly and professional young woman. And the secretary calls on the phone to let mister Frans know they're here and then tells them they are welcome to go check out the dolls on the wall display, and they do that, and then she's like, oh, but excuse me, not those dolls right next to the other dolls in the hermetically sealed glass tubes with the suspiciously human looking flesh. I did not mean you could play with those dolls because

mister Franz is very particular about them. Let's go look at the other ones. He is big about just having his dark secrets just open for display for anyone that happens to wander into his business. Yeah, so you're like shrinking people into dolls. And why would you have them in the front room of your office. He doesn't even have them in a vault or anything. Well, I'm at His response would be, how could I keep them in the back room? I get lonely. I need to look

at them. But he's always in the back rooms. He's having his visitors and secretary look at them. But what do I do when I come into the front room. I would get lonely if I couldn't see them. I keep one tube of John Agar in the bathroom just so I have some company. Yeah, so we zoom in on the tube dolls while we get a horrible dramatic music sting. Duh, And of course we see the very realistic looking people, except they do look kind of flat

and I think they are paper cutouts. Anyway, So we cut to some time later and a different young woman is wandering the holes of the building. She consults a classified ad that she's cut out from the newspaper. It's in her hand and it says that says general office girl wanted easy work, good pay. Apply to mister Franz Dolls Incorporated, Tilford Building, fifth floor. And this is June

Kenny as Sally Reynolds. So she lets herself into the office and then wanders around looking at things, and ends up picking up a figurine from the desk to examine it. And then suddenly there's a hand on her shoulder from behind, and she whirls around and here is John Hoyt as mister Franz. What would you guess? Is the first thing he says to her, like hello, or are you here about the job? The first thing he says is, young lady, do you like my dolls? She says, oh, yes, I

think they're lovely. And then he takes around to meet some of them. So he shows off. Oh here's a bride, isn't she lovely? Here's a housewife going shopping. Oh here she's very important. This is my nurse. She helps keep my little people well. So he's already like taken the dolls, taken them all serious, and Sally notices this. She's like, oh, you treat them like real people. And he says, but of course they're my friends. My name is mister Franz.

And she is creeped out, as many people would be, so she tries to leave, but mister Franz runs to the door to stop her. Good move, and he starts giving her a job interview there while he's preventing her from leaving. The main thrust of the job interview is are you married? Answer is no? Do you live with any family or roommates? Answer is no? And he's like, Oh, you're perfect, You're exactly what I need for this job. You're hired next victim. Yeah, And I guess the I

don't know. I guess it's just that, like Sally is, so is so goodhearted and innocent, she doesn't notice. Maybe that the that The entire thrust of the job interview is would anybody notice if you went missing? Yeah? Even in this interview, though, Franz is constantly doing this, he's always playing the pity card, a self pity card. You know.

There's the loneliness thing, but also the well, I and I'll pay you a standard rate, maybe even a little more, though it'll be difficult, you know, He were something to that effect, where he's he's like, it's always about what a bad time mister Franz is having. If you've seen what we do in the Shadows, mister Franz is kind of an emotional vampire. Yeah, he's always just like, oh so lonely, I couldn't I don't know what I would

do without you. Yeah, it's very lonely and controlling, and it is all about putting the blame for his loneliness on anyone in his vicinity, and in this case they're mostly people he's kidnapped and and experimented on. Right, So he eventually pressures her into consenting to answer a ringing telephone, and then he goes back to take the call in the rear. So here we get a good look at the layout of the office which will spend most of

the movie in. There's sort of a front room where like there's the secretary's desk in a waiting area and dolls in display cases on the walls, and then there's a middle room, which is the factory. This is equipment for making dolls. You get like plastic injection molding and conveyor belt for dollheads, and then these tables covered in

parts arms and legs and stuff. And then there's a back room behind a door that says no admittance, and beyond that door there's a room that has a desk and a telephone, as well as a couple of operating tables with some big ray gun aimed at them. Anyway, he goes, he takes the phone call and it's from a mister Grant who's like, hey, do you know somebody named Janet Hall. She was supposed to start work with

us this week, but she never showed up. And we find out, of course, that was the previous secretary who mister Brand says he doesn't know where she went, but he again begs for pity. He's like, oh, you know, miss Reynolds, Janet took such good care of things. I don't even know where the cash register is. But then oh, and then so Sally goes out to start doing her job, I guess, and we get the music swelling ferociously with a dun dune done as it zooms in on the

tube in his arm, and it's obviously Janet damn it. Yeah, yeah, there she is tubed up, shrunk and tubed. Okay, so some time passes. Miss Reynolds is apparently settling into her new duties. Everything seems to be going all right, But sometimes life throws a curveball at you. Sometimes you're just sitting there punching the keys on a typewriter and a room full of dolls and in walks John Agar. He's ready to sweep you off your feet to Saint Louis, Missouri and a whirlwind of arrows. And that is at

this moment, I've realized exactly what this movie needed. So it's a late fifties b horror film. So in the orcast, you need three figures. Really, you need the sparkly eyed on Junue. You need a creepy old man with a science or dull related secret. And to make the triad complete, you need a grass fed USDA Prime rectangle. And John Agar is exactly what the doctor ordered. He's uh oh,

and his character just sucks. He's he's a salesman named Bob Weslie, and as soon as he comes in and starts talking to her, he is a pushy jerk, Like you get the feeling this is. This is a salesman who makes his employees asked permission every time they want to drink from the water cooler. Uh and uh you know.

So the first thing he does is he's like, I need to see mister Franz, and Sally tells him mister Franz is busy, can't be disturbed, so he just ignores her, like barges right past her to throw open the door and look in the back. Yeah. Yeah, he this is a This is a character that I got the impression that he needed to be shrunk down to size, you know that. Yes, he this probably did him some good character wise. Oh. He introduces himself as he says, I'm

Bob Wesley, the best salesman in Saint Louis. So maybe that says it. Maybe this is supposed to be Saint Louis or maybe what if not? What's he doing in New York or wherever? Right, No, he's from Saint Louis because at one point he talks about taking her back to Saint Louis with him. Oh okay, yeah, why does it seems like a weird brag a strange flex if

you're in the big city, in the big Apple. You know, But despite how impressive and important John Agar is, he still can't see mister Franz, because Sally explains, he's in the back back room, the one labeled no admittance, and he cannot be disturbed while he's in there. She can't even call him on the phone. He'd be furious. And I think once you've seen the whole movie, you can probably assume. Oh, in the scene he's back there playing with his shrunken humans. Yeah, he's he's having key time

for them or something. But John Agar's confused by this. He's like, mister Franz, how could he ever be furious at you? He's as mild mannered as a kitten. How is that even possible? And so they start to talk, and Sally admits that she's a little bit uneasy about mister Franz, but she hesitates to say why, and John Agar turns on the charm. He apologizes for his earlier behavior, and he says, I want to be friends, okay, and

the charm seems to work. She agrees to be friends, and she starts to explain she gets a little weirded out when mister Franz gets into one of his peculiar moods. When he quote talks to them, he seems so serious, almost as if he expected them to talk back, and John Agar asks, what do you mean talks to who? And she says his dolls, to which John Egar responds by just laughing in her face. I'm not sure why is he mocking her for believing, he assumes incorrectly that

mister Franz talks to his dolls. This reaction, it doesn't make any sense that it might just be bad writing. I don't know. I don't know he comes He does come off incredibly unlikable because it feels like he's laughing at her, even if he's supposedly laughing at mister Frantz. I think he is laughing at her. I think the point is he's like, of course he's not talking to his dolls. You are silly for thinking he does that.

I don't know. Well, you know, The Incredible Shrinking Man was all about a guy who became more self aware the smaller he'd got. So maybe some positive change is in store for John Agar. Yeah. So we cut to the next morning or some other day, and there's an elevator scene. John Agar is back. He's pestering Sally in the elevator on the way up to their office. Good lord, how many people are in this elevator. This is not

an elevator, this is a room. Yeah. I was taken aback by this as well, because if my count is correct, they're like fourteen people in this elevator scene. And I just did I didn't do extensive research, but I glanced around at some stills from famous cinematic elevator sequences, and I feel like you're generally looking at eight to ten people tops, but fourteen. This is incredible. This is like a freight elevator. You would think buildings would have a

dedicated elevator for John A. Gar Alone. Yeah, I mean, given his sales credentials. Okay, But also here in this scene, there's a whole thing about the mail carrier bringing a letter for Janet Hall, the previous secretary, and it has to be signed by her, but she's not there. So Sally Reynolds offers to take the letter, and then mister Franz says he'll take it because he expects to see it or see her again. The point is Janet Hall

is missing, and mister Franz takes the letter. He promises to give it to her, but later Sally finds the letter in the garbage, and this raises her suspicions. Also, we learned that the mailman is new because the old mailman quote old Ernie, who used to deliver to the building, mysteriously went missing two days before his retirement, right around the time mister Franz made that incredibly realistic mailman doll

that no one is allowed to touch. And oh, and then also we get a scene later where mister Franz like closes the door and hanging on the back of the door is just a mail carrier's satchel. This is just adding to his crimes. He's interviewing with the post

office at this point. Yeah, oh man, you don't want to mess with that, so you know, much like mini movies are padded out with extraneous scenes of people driving to the next location or parking cars when they arrive, this movie is padded out with a lot of scenes of people arriving at the office, calling in to say they've arrived, walking back and forth between the rooms and the office and so forth. And to be clear about driving scenes, not all driving scenes and movies are extraneous.

Sometimes filmmakers use them for a good stylistic reason, maybe to establish a tone or a mood. But a lot of B movies, you know, they don't accomplish much in terms of style. The driving scenes are just some filler to get you to the target run time of eighty two minutes. And I think a lot of the sort of like human padding scenes in this are the same way as just people arriving in places saying they've arrived and so forth. Not much is really getting done there

in terms of plot or mood. Yeah, I'm reminded of there was at least one essay from emberto Echo where he gets into this, or maybe more than one where he's talking about movies where he was talking about literature, like what happens when you have like dead time in movies dedicated to characters moving from point A to point B. Writing in elevators. I think there was one who is also talking about what, like what does it mean when say, James Bond spends a lot of time pouring his coffee?

You know, James Bond book and so on one level, having these kinds of moments in your film or just your general storytelling, you can highlight the mundane to either intentionally or accidentally, then highlight some sort of supernatural or element that will present itself or some sort of supernatural or not supernatural, but some sort of supernormal stimuli. But it also is the sort of thing that clearly occurs in motion pictures just by virtue of amateur filmmakers or

filmmakers that are just kind of cranking it out. And I tend to think that this picture is more of the latter, as opposed to some sort of pointed attempt to make the shrunk scenes feel more amazing. It's interesting though you raise the case of James Bond pouring his

coffee and stuff. I do think specifically in the case of James Bond, a big part of the esthetic of the Bond books and the Bond films is the stereo feeling that emerges between like sex and death on one hand, and consumption of luxury food and drink items and use of like luxury hotel and automobile facilities on the other end. You know, it's like, exactly what the James Bond feeling is is it's danger. It's like erotic and life and death thrills alongside luxury goods. Yeah, I mean, it's just

a basic too. When there's food in a movie, if someone orders a meal, you want to see that meal. I'd forget what I was watching the other day. I was watching something with my wife, I think some TV show and a character ordered some meal or some dish and we never got to see it, and that kind of made me mad on some level, like, like, no, I want to see what they ordered, Like, show me the food. I think that's something most good directors understand.

Showing food and drink is an important part of setting. Yeah, and we do have some food and drink sequences coming up. Yes, that's right. Oh. We do get a scene with a like a doll clothing vendor where mister Franz is asking Sally which article of doll clothing she likes best, and she picks out, oh, white organdy with blue ribbons, and he says, oh, it's a pity you can't model it

for us. So he's still being a creep. And then oh, and this is also the scene where Sally discovers the letter to Janet Hall torn up in the trash Dun dun dune. Yeah. Oh, also here we introduce a new character. This is mister Franz's old friend, a Meal, and it is through a meal that we learn a lot of backstory, So I think they knew each other from back in the day when they were both in the puppet show business.

So mister Friends was once a puppeteer a performer, and Amiel is in town to do a string of big puppet shows at the theater. It seems like he is still a world class puppeteer. And we learned later that he's doing some kind of puppet adaptation of Doctor Jekyl and mister Hyde. Now I should throw in here. I didn't cover Michael Mark earlier. He's the actor playing Emil

who lived eighteen eighty through nineteen seventy five. Some of his uh bigger films were Son of Frankenstein from thirty nine, The Waspwoman from fifty nine, and a slew of other pictures. He was also in Return of the Fly from fifty nine. But yeah, in this, in this picture, it's kind of it's it's a fun little role. He's also the character who frequently has has shown up to to greet mister Friends. Mister Friends, it's like, oh, I have all my only

friends are the dolls? What will I do without them? And like here's an actual, like real life friend. He's like Hey, buddy, can we hang out? And he's like, oh, well, if I must, if I must, but I really need to get back to my dolls. Yeah. He's constantly trying to get Emil out of his office so that he can go shrink people some more. You know, Emil as like the guy who shows up from you know, the

Life before to talk to the villain. He kind of reminds me of like Doctor Strowski and Bride of the Monster, because he's like generally concerned about his old friends, like asking about him, like, you know, how, how's your wife? Oh? That's right. So here is another thing we get from mister Friends as emotional history. So we learned he was once married to a beautiful, golden haired woman named Emma,

but she left him. Mister Friends says, my Marionettes were playing in Luxembourg and she ran away with someone she liked better, an acrobat, And I was thinking, what's what's the story? Is Luxembourg significant? Is that a place where

people run away? Maybe that's just incidental. Yeah, I'm not sure where the connection would be there other than she had enough of mister Friends if he found somebody better, and he has never let it go and refuses to take a chance on any new human beings in his life that have not been completely managed, shrunken down, and completely controlled by him. She left him for an acrobat who promised never to shrink her. Yeah, but anyway, he says, you know what, I'm happy now because I have my daughter.

That's what I'm into. I don't want to come back to show business. His friend tries to get him to, you know, yeah, come come, come do show business again, and he's like, I don't want it, but I will repair your puppets for you, so that there's that. Oh. Also we see he still knows how to operate puppets because they go to the theater and he puts on a little show for Emil, and I don't I'm confused

by this theater setup. So the people in this large theater are all watching this tiny puppet show in a box about three feet wide, Like it looks like a normal size auditorium, so people might be seated like eighty feet away, and these puppets are less than a foot tall, and the action is taking place in this little three

foot space. Yeah, I don't know. I mean I've seen a number of puppet shows over the years, and sometimes they've I mean, it's it's certainly a medium where it's better if you can be up close for it, especially the smaller scale stuff. But I've also seen puppetry in venues where my seating wasn't that good, and maybe it was a little harder to make everything out, but it was still pleasant and amusing, So I'm not sure. I

guess it could go either way. But if the scene is making you doubt it, then I think the scene has some shortcomings for sure. Yeah, once again, here Emil tries to tempt mister Friends back into show business, but he's content where he is in the doll business, and he says, why must someone who is content have something wrong with him? And Emil says a contentment is not natural, but you know he's not going to budge him. So then, oh, then we cut away to one of my favorite scenes

in the movie. That is the scene at the drive in movie theater where John Agar and Sally are I guess on a date for some reason, Why are they on a date? Did we see any basis for like a romance being established other than him nagging her and saying he wanted to be friends? And then then that's right. Next step today wanted to be friends? Okay, yeah, so yeah, they go to the drive in and they watched The

Amazing Colossal Man on the big screen. But I love this because Bert doesn't just casually drop it at It's not one of those moments where it's like, hat, did you notice that The Amazing Colossal Man is on in the background? No, no, no, We watched several clips from the film featuring big Glenn Manning freaking out over his size,

and yeah, it's it's wonderful. I like the idea too, that drive in viewers were watching this movie and had previously watched The Amazing Colossal Man, perhaps at the same drive in, and now they're watching like drive in through

a drive in screen. Yes, there are also some time, I think tongue in cheek comments from Agar's character about you know, about trying something new, which felt like maybe it's kind of a bird eye Gordon like, I usually make movies about big things, now I'm making one about small things. Haha, wink wink. But I may be over analyzing the whole the whole sequel. Do you think he had realized what his initials spelled by this point? Um? You know, I'm not sure at what point because who

wasn't it gave him that nickname. I want to say it was Forrest j Ackerman or somebody like that, so that that nickname may have been bestowed pretty early on. Well, anyway, this drive in date leads to some plot developments, because, as is well known, if you watch a Birdeye Gordon movie at the drive in on your first date, the next step is immediate and irreversible progression to full wedlock. So they decide to get married. And how seriously, how bizarre is the proposal in the scene? How I don't

even how does it develop? These just like she's like, oh, are you going to go back to Saint Louis And he's like, you could come with me? And she says,

and do what he says, become missus. Bob Wesley. Well, you have to remember that The Amazing Colossal Man is a very stirring film about about the growing distance between a man and his wife, and so it can it can make one maybe even a little bit impulsive about the need to hold on to people you're you've known for like quite a week, and and and maybe want to want to actually lock that down with a wedding ring. Yeah, it makes you hold fast to the nearest pushy salesman. Uh.

So they're gonna, yeah, they make plans. They're gonna fly to Las Vegas and get married the very next day, and then they're gonna move to Saint Louis together. And so Bob tells her, you know what, you don't even have to tell have to tell mister Franz, I'll tell him for you. I'm gonna go in in the morning and tell him that that you're not coming back to work.

That's I guess that's how these dynamics worked in the fifties. Yeah, well, I think she says she didn't want to face him because she felt bad, because of course he'd he'd like guilt tripper about it. We know what he would do. He is a creek so and and can be very forceful with his self pity. So yeah, get John Agar in there. He's he's a cold hearted hunk. He can exactly Yes, this pushy salesman will not be bothered by

his please for pity. But then back at home, it's the next day and Sally, you know, where's where's Bob? She receives a call from mister Franz. It seems Bob has left town without her. How horrible, And so she goes into the office and mister Franz is like, oh, that wasn't very thoughtful of him. But Sally doesn't believe it. Could John Agar possibly have treated her this thoughtlessly. Oh. Also, now mister Franz has a tube with a tiny John Agar in it, and she's like, wow, it really looks

like him. It could almost be him, except he wasn't this small. And mister Franz gives a speech in response to her, saying, you know, it really looks like him. He says, thank you for the compliment. You know, it is the aim of every composer to fit the world within the limits of his symphony. A writer wants to put all of life between the covers of his book. Well, if I can make my dolls in the image of

those I know and love, I'm satisfied. You know, I'm reminded for the first time here as we're recording it that, even though last episode was our first shrink movie in a while, the episode before that, if I'm remembering correctly, Clash of the Titans, that of course, also has these scenes where like Zeus is handling these miniature versions of people and controlling and manipulating them. And that's basically what

mister Franz is creating for himself here. He's setting himself up as the self obsessed god that treats everyone in his life like they are little playthings that he has complete control over. Well, he could have just taken a page out of your book and got a miniature's hobby. He didn't have to shrink all these salesmen and secretaries. That's true. I was actually clipping out some minis while watching the movie and didn't realize the irony of that until it was a good ways. Then I have one

of you and JJ and everything. So Sally's I think she's seen enough. She knows what's going on now, so she goes straight to the cops. She says, please help, my boss turned my fiance into a doll. And the detective treats her like she's out of her mind until she starts to mention other people to whom she thinks the same thing has happened. There is Janet Hall, the previous secretary. There's a maleman named Ernie and so forth,

and what do you know? The detective starts leafing through his files and he finds that these are all missing persons. But that makes me think, wait, the detective never put it together that like half of the missing persons in town all have a connection to the same doll company. Oh well, Amy, we don't know that he's a good detective, but he appears not to be. But I did ultimately kind of like this see the sequence kind of got it took sim me because it seems like he's just

gonna laugh her off. But then he's like, oh no, actually these are all missing people's cases. And then he's like, let's go check it out. And part of me gets kind of wrapped up in the plot here, and I'm like, yeah, okay, nail him. Get this guy that we're gonna actually arrest him here. Yeah, I know what you're saying that there was a nice plot movie. I think a lesser movie would have just had him laugher off completely and then move on to the next thing. But now she makes

a logical case. She's like, what about all these missing people? Those are actually missing people. So we get further investigation. So Sally and the detective go to Dolls Incorporated. The cop is like, look, Friends. I hear you've been turning people into dolls? Is that true? And he, you know, Friends are sitting there with John Eggar in a tube at a table, and he denies it. He's like, whoa,

that's silly. How could I turn people into dolls? And the detective asks, how come that doll you're holding looks exactly like her boyfriend because it's a little John Egar there, And he replies by setting it on fire. Yeah, just drop the match in there, and woof, John Agar goes up in flames and it's just completely incenterated. Now. Of course Sally is horrified, but then the leads to mister Friends opening up maybe my favorite set piece in the film.

This is the best image from the movie. Yeah, opens up the suitcase and what's in there but six tubes of John Agar. A suitcase full of John Agars. Looks like Santa came early this year. It's so many John Agars?

What would you do with them? All? Yeah? And I mean I was trying to piece that together, like why, well, first of all, how because we'll get into exactly how Friends as miniaturization is supposed to work in a bit, and he never it's never mentioned that he can create copies, Like, I don't know why we have a plurality of Agars

in the picture. It's never explained in context with friends his method of miniaturization, Like are these just mere backups because he likes this guy so much, just in case a friend gets smashed or eaten by a neighborhood cat or I was wondering too, is this like a fuel source because we see how quickly John Agar goes up in flames. Perhaps a canister of this is enough to like power an airplane to fly from New York to London or something. Oh yeah, John Agar, the energy source

of the future. You can imagine something like this facility powered by one hundred percent clean burning John Agar. Yeah. I mean, I guess. The other less fun interpretation is he also makes super accurate dolls that can in this case serve as as as a decoy for his actual miniaturization efforts. But there's nothing else in the picture to back that idea up either, So it's but it's still

such a delightful sequence. It's so weird and wacky when he opens that suitcase and there are all these John Agars in there all right, So after the suitcase of agars. The detective leaves, and obviously Sally is quite embarrassed. She wants to quit. She's like, how can we go on after this? I need to I need to leave. I'm never coming back. But then Friends locks the door. He gets even creepier. He says, how could I ever bear

to let you go? And he approaches her and we see her her screaming, and then the lights go out. And what happened was she loses consciousness, and when she wakes up again, she is lying down on a strange surface with her head on some kind of rope or something. And then she sits up and she finds she's dressed strangely, and the rope her head was lying on was not a rope but a telephone chord of enormous proportions. And what she's wearing is a napkin. That's right. Miss Reynolds

has been shrunken. So she's surrounded by all these huge objects, say, a rotary telephone bigger than she is, a big scaffolding of drawers and shelves with paint cans and stationary and chemistry equipment, all of monstrous size, and right off the bat here, I think we need to compare the shrink effects in this movie with last week's movie, The Incredible Shrinking Man. The Incredible Shrinking Man is wonderful in many ways, but with the effects, I think it really made you

feel the alien horror of changes of scale. And so the gigantic sets representing matchboxes and sewing needles and everything, the mousetraps, they looked spectacular, but they also made you feel how truly frightening it would be to be in the same environment you live every day but a couple of inches tall. Oh yeah, absolutely. By comparison, the special effects and gigantic sets in this movie are not even

close to as good. Now. They are quite amusing, I'm not gonna I mean, this movie is a lot of fun, but they do not at all make you feel that scale change as the kind of nausea or horror that Incredible Shrinking Man does. One way that puppet People really does not compare is that the scaled up stuff all around them feels totally inconsistent in respect to the size of their bodies. Like, are the puppet people bigger than

a telephone or smaller than a door knob? Yeah, you get the fear that like Basically, Burt and his people were like, hey, you your team, or you're building a giant door knob. You you're building a giant telephone. And it wasn't really there weren't really any details about exactly how all these things should scale to each other. I will say this, this sequence where she wakes up and she's small, first of all, compared to Incredible Shrinking Man.

Incredible Shrinking Man is is a lot of the film is about the dread and the gradual acceptance of becoming small, these changes in scale. Here she's just suddenly small, so it's shocking. And if nothing else, we do get a nice scream here from her, a nice scream face with hands on both sides of her face while she's looking at a giant rotary telephone. Yeah. I mean that's got to be if you woke up and saw that phone, wouldn't you scream? She's like, I have to answer this

thing all day long? Yea. So, so mister Franz comes in and he starts giving his villain speech. He's like, well, surely you aren't afraid of me, are you? And he gives a long speech explaining his motives. What goes on with people now that they're shrunken. His methods. Oh, first of all, he like very creepily makes her dress up in doll clothes, and then he brings out tiny John Agar. He gets his two about and I guess this is the real one and the other ones that the one

he burned was a decoy. But this raises the question again or did did he make multiple living John Agars. I mean, I've got to go in that direction that there's there's still a suitcase full of John Agars, maybe five John Agars. Anyway, he had to get one of them out. We never find out what happened to the other a Gars. I assume there's a scene later where the police come back. And I was imagining a scene where Friends is like, you know, hurriedly flushing extra John

Agars down the toilet to destroy the evidence. It's like in Good Fellows. Some are going down the toilet. He's alway stuffing John Agar's in his underwear and stuff. Uh yeah, So Sally gets John Agar out of his tube and he wakes up, and John Agar's mad. He starts like throwing things at mister Franz, and you know, he's tiny. It doesn't really do anything But mister Franz explains his position. He's like, he says, why do my dull people always hate me? At first, you know, he says, I take

care of your every need. You no longer have to worry about work, or paying the bills, or paying your taxes or taking care of a household. All you ever have to do is spend time with me and have fun. I never allow you to feel pain. I never let your needs go unmet. You sleep away the long boring hours and your tubes, and then you only wake up when it's time for a party. Isn't this the perfect life? And you know what, John Agar and Sally totally ungrateful

for everything mister Franz is doing for them. John Agar, yell's change us back the way we were, But mister Franz says, no, I like you better the way you are. M Uh. Then we segue to mister Frands taking quite a while to explain how the shrinking works is in it? What exactly is the principle here? Hey, it's all based in the optics of projection, right. It's it's which feels like a very sort of like a v way of

trying to understand scale. Uh, Yeah, there's not. It's like it's even the scene is even kind of light on techno babble um, Like there's not even any just techno babble to sort of make you feel like something high in science was going on. No, it's just like, well, you know how projector works, well like that except with your body. Yeah, so he can like move a projector farther away from the wall and the image gets bigger

and vice versa. And at first I thought this was an analogy, but then it turns out that's just what he's doing. He's using like photo I don't know, yeah, like optics to I don't understand it. But another thing to note, did you notice the same thing when Franz actually goes over to the table where the machine shrinks people. He's trying to demonstrate for Bob and Sally by shrinking

a cat. But then when we see where they are, like from their perspective, a shelf is blocking their views, so they would not actually be able to see the demonstration at all. I didn't notice those. I was just too distracted by the cat because I was thinking back to incredible shrinking man. I was like, are they gonna have to fight? That cat. What's gonna happen with the cat? No, Instead,

he shrinks the cat and makes a super hute tiny kitten. Yeah. Yeah, the cat becomes a kitten that fits in a match box, which is adorable. And then they bring out a bunch of other two people. Mist Friends is like, well, let's have a little two people party. So they get a lady named George Elaine and a marine and a marine uniform named Mac and a couple of g willakers soakop teenagers named Stan and Laurie. And I guess that's the whole gang. There are other two people who we just

never see woken up. Yeah, Like, I guess the nurse two person is only brought out when somebody needs medical attention. Maybe. Well know, the nurse he was talking about was just a straight up doll, so I don't know if he makes them. He's like, care, get get your healthcare from this doll, and they have to pretend. I don't understand. But so they have a party. Friends puts on a hip swing record and it's you know, playing playing hot music,

and they get out tiny refreshments. There's like a flatter with a tiny champagne bottle and some kind of food on it. It looks weird. Yeah, so, I mean two friends his credit like he's trying in his own, you know, his warp perspective. He's trying to give them a good time, show him a good time. He's not making them run around and rat wheels or anything. Oh yeah. So Sally and Bob are like this is terrible, but the others

are very complacent. Especially at first. Georgia Laine's like, I don't know, I like being a doll, and one of the I think it's Laurie, says, hey, are you too engaged? And then mister Franz implies that he will shrink a priest so that he can properly marry Bob and Sally. But then there's a weird line I didn't understand. So Sally does not like the fact that she has been shrunk, and then Laurie the teenager says, hey, look at it

this way. We all sometimes have to do things we don't want to do just to have some freedom like this. M Yeah, it sounds like she's really stretching to normalize being kidnapped and shrunk by a mad dollmaker. Yeah. No, And here's the scene where like they dance to the record a little bit and then Laurie sings the song my Living Doll. This is this is good. This is a fun little song. But also I believe Franz is like mouthing the words along to him like he's really

he's really into it. And again, the whole throughout the whole movie, you really buy into Franz. Uh. You feel that this is a guy who is uniquely lonely and his loneliness has been warped into this, uh, this level of control and manipulation. Yeah, there's a whole action sequence here, by the way, So the puppet people are partying and then Amiel shows up. He's oh, he's here to talk to friends about something. And this is one of those scenes where friends is like, oh, my human friend, I

hate you. Be quiet. I must get back to my dolls. Yeah. Yeah, but but there is legitimate tension here because, yeah, they try and call some for some help. They get the telephone, they're yelling into the telephone. It takes, you know, all all of them working together to to do this physically, but they cannot be heard. The music is too loud, their voices are too small. But the whole time here is like, are they gonna be able to pull it off? Is is he going to come back into the room

and catch them? Is he I was just expecting somebody to be squashed, to be made an example of, or he'd feed them to a you know, I don't know, an ape or something. Well, there's multiple attempts. They try to call somebody on the phone. Also, while he's distracted, they try to rebigulate themselves, like yeah, you remember they put the marine on the table and they're trying to operate the stuff on the controls on the machine, but

they run out of time. It seems like it almost works, but mister Franz is coming back in, so they scamper back up to the table, and it seems like the props keep changing size in relationship to them throughout the sequence. But then Franz puts them all back in their tubes. So while our puppet people are asleep, the detective comes back to investigate Frans again. You know it's are you sure you aren't turning people into dolls? And meanwhile there is a kid in the office who wants to get

her doll repaired. I think this might be Bertie Gordon's kid. Yeah. But in the meantime, this is when she oh, she discovers the miniature cat in the matchbox and starts playing with it, and yes, it is very cute. Yeah, And he's like, no, you can't play with that anymore right now, You've got to get it back, and she's like, no, I'm never giving this bag. This is a cat that fits in a matchbox, you crazy old man, and this is mine forever now. Yeah. So we're going into the

third act. So Emil shows up and he needs friends to repair his Jekyl and Hide puppet, which by the way, looks exactly like Dracula. But Emil reveals that the police have been questioning him about friends, and this really gets Frands spooked and he decides like, okay, I got to destroy all my dolls, and Sally actually overhears him talking about this. He's got to destroy all the dolls because

the police are onto him. But before he does that, he's going to go to the theater repair Emil's doll, and then he's going to take the shrink friends out of their tubes, take them to the theater with him in the suitcase, where he's going to give them a

big going away party. Yeah, I mean it's even a little darker than that, Like it's pretty it's he's basically saying that it's going to be a total murder suicide situation, like I'm going to destroy you all and kill myself, but it's all right because we're all going to die together because you're my friends. And it's very creepy. It's like it the creepiness it seems intentional and definitely shines

through Oh yes, yeah. But also Sally overhears this, and then she really does not show the appropriate level of urgency in telling all of the other people. Like, so they get taken out of the tubes and they're all getting ready for the party, you know, bathing and getting dressed and stuff, and then it's like, hey, Sally, what did you say about he's going to destroy us all? And then Sally's like, oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. So he takes them to the theater. There's a whole sequence

at the theater. Several things to discuss. One is he tries to make them act alongside the Jekyl and Hide slash Dracula puppet, and this is where we get the scene of the attack on the puppet. So he's making them go into the I don't know, the little playbox and act out the parts in the play that I guess in reality would be done by puppets. So but when he makes John Agar go in there, John Agar says, you know this Jekyl and Hide puppet. He is a monster,

but he's not half the monster you are. And then he grabs the puppet and rips its head off and smashes it, which is kind of a ridiculous looking sequence, but it works on other levels because it's like puppets are another thing, these little things made via his craft or or tweaked via his craft, Like these are the things that Franz actually cares about, and this is like his one Agar's one chance to lash out at him. Oh and then Franza this line was hilarious. He goes, no,

stop it, Bob the puppet. You're destroying the puppet. But I wish there was a term for that thing. You would call it, like absurd specificity in dialogue, or like a pronoun should be used, but instead people specify the noun in a way that sounds ludicrous. Another example I was thinking of is in m I feel like this is specially comes in scenes where the dialogue is accompanying special effects shots instead of just like normal people on

a set. So one of the other examples that comes to my mind is in Superman for the Quest for Peace, where the evil villain Nuclear Man. I think it goes like this. At one point he says I will hurt people, and then Superman says, no, the people. How would you compare this to the line in trol Too where the guy yells they're eating her and then they're going to eat me. Slightly different? Maybe no, no, no, yes, that's

actually similar, very related thing. Just the narrating of events that everybody in the room can see happening, that you would have no need to explain. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess it's different. Maybe it head writers and maybe not a troll too, but maybe writers who wrote for radio. I don't know, Yeah, because it would make sense if you did not have visuals, and you need to like establish blow for blow what is supposed to be happening, and right and so forth. But at any rate, the puppet,

you're destroying the puppet. Well anyway, Franz here gets interrupted by a stage hand and in the meantime, the doll people all scatter and escape, and there's a big adventure sequence where Bob and Sally they run. They make it outside. They are briefly menaced by a rat, but then they're in a really shocking twist there's a cat that comes to the rescue by attacking the rat that's attacking them. Who would have expected it. That's a real twist. Bird.

So I think they're playing is they got to get back to the building they came from and get back into mister Franz's office so they can rebigulate themselves in the machine, and along the way they get attacked by a dog, but then a liveryman chases the dog away. They reinfiltrate the office by getting inside a parcel. They like get inside a box that's addressed to the office. The mail carrier takes them to the office and then they rebigulate just before mister Franz arrives to stop them.

And then so like they so, Bob and Sally are restored to regular size, and then we get just such a weird and abrupt ending. I'd say this is an all time like top five weird off putting endings movie. Absolutely like for the time period. If you had to predict the ending for this movie, you would think, all right, they get big again, they saved the day, and our last shot is surely going to be our heroes reunited, maybe talking to the police or something, and then then

then it'll be closed credits. But that's not what we get. No, Instead, the two of them are rebigulated. No idea what's going on with the other puppet people. Last time we saw them, they scattered the theater and Franz was looking for them, and we don't know what happened to them. And then back in the office, Franz is standing there and he says, don't leave me, Please, don't leave me. I'm all alone, and sad music plays and we zoom out on a

couple of empty glass tubes, and that's the end. Yeah, it's such a weird moment for us to feel bad for Frans one last time. Instead of ending on a happy note for the release of all his kidnapping and experimentation victims, we don't end on his demise or his arrest. It's just implied that I guess something will come of this. It's just him feeling super sad that his only friends

are being taken away from him. And the weird thing is that again due to the especially to the performance and you know, the way the scenes constructed here the moment it is executed well enough that you can't help but feel it hit a bit. But then, at least with me anyway, I was like it sunk in for a second. Then I'm like, whoa, whoa wa wait a minute,

I'm not feeling sorry for this guy. Trip quit trying to make me feel sorry for the man who kidnapped and shrunk people and was going to going to kill them all and himself in the final moments of this film if he headed his way, Yeah, it doesn't make anything. So like we don't see the villain get his come upance, we don't see all of the good characters like restored to normal size. We have no idea what their fate is.

And then it just plays sad music and ends right there, like ends right at the moment before there would be some kind of resolution. Yeah, like what if misery had ended this way or silence of the lamps or something, you know, I think a better ending would have been, like maybe he like falls down an elevator shaft and then suddenly we discover oh, here are those five additional broken tubes of John Agars and then John Agars eat him. I think that would have been good. That'd be really good.

But no, no no, no, maybe that's not not fifties enough. That would have been more like a seventies ending. What if it just ended with John Agar doing the speech from the Incredible Shrinking Man. Does the infinitesimal become the infinite? I don't know. Hopefully John Agar's character has grown as a person because of this experience, yeah, but the movie's not concerned with that. It's more concerned with France. He seems to be weirdly enough, the twisted heart and soul

of this picture. Yeah. So I think it should become a yearly tradition, much like you might watch Halloween or even Halloween three on the night of Halloween, or much like we watch The Wickerman every May Day. I think people should watch Attack of the Puppet People every year on the night of the Watergate break in. All right, yeah, why not? Why not? You know they have that HBO series coming out about the White House Plumbers, the concerns, you know, the Watergate. I wonder if they are going

to include anything about Attack of the puppet people. I think that would be great. It seems like the tone of the show would lend itself to covering that little historical tidbit. All right, we're going to go ahead and close it out here, but a reminder that Stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a science podcast, with Tuesdays and Thursday's episodes being our core episodes. On Monday's we

do listener mail. On Wednesdays we do a short form episode a monster fact or an artifact, and then on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to talk about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema. And if you want to see a complete list of all the movies we've covered on Weird House Cinema, well, you can go to a couple of places. I blog about these episodes

at some mutemusic dot com. But also if you use a letterbox that's l ett er boxb dot com, we have a profile there it's weird House, and we have a list of all the movies we've covered a link store. You can listen to them and it's pretty neat. You can see them in order. The little posters arranged arranged like miniaturized people in tubes for your pleasure and your delight.

Here's thanks to our audio producer J. J. Pauseway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.