The Miniature Marines Are Here To Save You!
Attack of The Puppet People (1958) follows the scientific exploits of a lonely old man who has discovered how to shrink people down to doll size, which is convenient as he is a doll maker and marionette repair artist. For him, the little people are friends, keeping him company and amused when he awakens them from their drugged sleep.
They feel a bit differently.
Some OK special effects, a flaccid attempt at tension, and a bare hint at amiable madness. At bottom, this is a competently made movie, technically speaking, but the characters presented by the story are little more than cardboard: the doll-maker’s best salesman from St. Louis, after knowing the new secretary for less than a week and humiliating her at work, proposes to her; the new secretary has no family, no spunk, and no personality; some less well-defined mini-people; only the old man’s friend, an active puppeteer, has something approaching life.
I was actually cheering for the rat that jumps them.
