Starring: John Hoyt, John Agar, June Kenney  Directed by : Bert I. Gordon    

Written by: Bert I. Gordon, George Worthing Yates

THE STORY:  I don't know what made me rent this movie. I guess it reminded me of the cheesy stuff I used to catch on Saturday afternoons as a kid. It wasn't a bad movie, considering the time it was made. But it also has the one thing that I always wonder about in movies like this.

Mr. Franz, a dollmaker has created a machine that can shrink and unshrink living creatures. He uses it to shrink people he likes and forces them to keep him company. Franz's wife left him some years before and he's developed a phobia about being alone. His shrunken prisoners have no choice but to obey him. He makes them throw parties and sing for him and they go along with it. The only alternative for them is to be put in a jar and frozen. Yep, Franz, has also developed some kind of knockout drop that puts his prisoners in suspended animation. So when he's not forcing them to keep him company, they're frozen.

So why isn't he a rich bastard? If I could build a device like that and discover how to put people in suspended animation I'd have more money than Bill Gates! Why is it that Mad scientists in some movies create machines that would garner them more riches and power by selling the patent than it would to take over the world? Franz just wants company, but he's deranged. Because with the amount of cash he'd get by disclosing his invention chicks would be lining up at the door....to his bedroom!

Franz decides to shrink his secretary, Sally Reynolds and her fiancée Bob Westley when he finds that they plan to elope. He likes Sally and doesn't want her to leave his employ. Bob, I guess he likes kind of also. Bob's an odd character to me. When he first meets Sally he's obnoxious. He says he's the best salesman in the universe and just barges into Franz's offices even when Sally tells him that Mr. Franz doesn't want to be disturbed. This guy's a salesman? What's he selling, "How to be an obnoxious asshole for dummies" books? Anyway, once Bob and Sally find themselves trapped with several other shrunken people they all begin plotting a way to escape and get help and hopefully become normal again. Unfortunately the police keep questioning Franz about people he knows that have disappeared. Franz knows its only a matter of time before the cops figure out what he's done. (At least in the movie universe...in real life I'm sure the last thing the police think is "He must have shrunk these people to doll size and hidden them!"...even if Sally does tell one policeman that. There's no way anyone's going to believe that unless they see it.) Franz decides to kill himself and his prisoners, but only after he repairs some puppets belonging to an old friend. (Don't ask) He takes his prisoners with him to the old theater as he works on the puppets, and they take the chance to try and escape. Bob and Sally actually make it out of the Theater, across town and back to his secret lab, where they use the machine to return to normal size just as Franz arrives in pursuit. You'd think this means the final fight to the finish...and it would in a recent movie. but this was made in 1958. Bob just takes Sally with him to get the cops...and that's the end!

Its a goofy premise, but its good watchin' if you don't mind old movies. I mean, it was forty plus years ago when this was made, so the FX aren't special. Its not as exciting as Dr. Cyclops, another movie about shrunken people, but its still an okay old flick. I just wish they put more into Franz' thing about being lonely. Thats what drives his actions and you'd think he'd come across as a little more twisted than he does. Franz actually seems like a fairly nice guy...kind of a Mister Rogers type...if you don't count his shrinking and imprisoning people. He was played by John Hoyt, real trek fans know him as original Doctor on the starship Enterprise, Phillip Boyce...(if you've seen the original pilot for Star Trek, "The Cage".)

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) Kids must have been easy to impress in the 50's,. Nowadays you'd have to own a Pokemon' factory to get their attention.

2.) Man, that's some quick burning plastic! Franz tries to convince SGT Patterson that the doll of Westley is really a doll. He sets fire to it and it burns up completely in like five seconds! Talk about a dangerous toy for kids. Its packed full of gasoline or something! I've seen charcoal briquettes that won't ignite that well after dousing them with lighter fluid! (Wonder if I can get some of those dolls for my next barbecue?)

3.) The tiny marine must have been bitten by a radioactive spider. He climbs the leg of a table with no visible support and he does it pretty damn quick. I'm sure any marines watching this movie will chalk it up to Marine training. Hey, Andrew....can you climb stuff like that?

4.) Yeah, this must be the 50's or a very lazy city. Bob says since its 5:30 AM when he and Sally escape they won't find help on the streets because everyone's in bed. At 5:30!? Someone has to be at least coming to work! A milkman, a postman, the local thug or a cop. This is a big city! Not Mayberry.

NUDITY AND SEX:  None. Its 1958 for cryin' out loud. But Sally is cute and you see her dressed in only a napkin. But don't get to into that...the woman is probably dead by now and if not she's gotta be hittin' 70 or 80 years old by now!

HUH?:  Bob and Sally escape the theater and have to make it to Franz's office to re-embiggen themselves. Bob says its only a mile but in their shrunken state that's like six miles. No sweat, if you're in a jam like that. A six mile run is no fun, but if you're life is in danger....hell, I've done six mile runs and my life wasn't in danger. (Well, it was kind of...the Sergeant major would've killed me if I stopped running)

The dog that threatened Bob and Sally wasn't too serious. If he really wanted to eat them all he had to do was step over the box. (Of course that would have required him stepping out of the screen he was projected on....which is about as improbable as shrinking people.

The delivery guy sure looks like John Belushi if you squint and turn your head.

What about the others? Bob and Sally unshrink themselves but the others are still trapped in the theater. We don't find out. The movie ends as soon as Franz discovers the normal Bob and Sally in his office.

Why didn't Bob OR Sally beat the living daylights out of Franz once they resumed their normal size? I'd have stomped him into next week.

THE FINAL JUDGMENT: Think of this movie as an extended version of an old Twilight Zone episode. It won't hurt you and its mildly unsettling (if you think about how powerless the shrunken people are) plus its makes good use of the admittedly low budget special effects it can muster. Since its an old flick the Inferno won't punish it for the FX, and instead grant this movie four devils. Any movie with this plot deserves to be spared....besides...if Hollywood ever makes a remake of this with big name stars and CGI FX I'm betting it would suck donkey balls.