How to Make a Doll

A nerdy professor who has no luck with women builds beautiful female robots to satisfy his sexual desires.

Herschell Gordon Lewis made 12 movies between 1967-1968, and this is not one of the better-known ones, for good reason. "Rosamond Chudnow, who was David Chudnow's wife, had the idea to shoot a picture called How to Make a Doll," reflected Lewis. "She just loved that title." Lewis reflected years later that the film was a mistake, primarily because of the lack of budget. He noted a more appropriate director for the material would have been Blake Edwards, who could have had the financial backing to make a better machine.

In fact, just a few years prior, was the release of "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine" (1965). Although quite different in a number of ways, it had a similar concept at its core: a machine that created beautiful women. This film is far superior, and starred Vincent Price. Such a success should have made "Doll" redundant.

Anyway, the rarely-seen film is lovingly restored by Arrow Video, using a 2K scan of a 35mm print and cleaning it up from there. The negative, sadly, has been lost and was not available. For the most part, the picture and sound are pretty good, at least as decent as "Gruesome Twosome". The film does not have much in the way of special features, and really works best as a companion to another film. In the case of the Arrow set, it is paired with "Wizard of Gore".

How to Make a Doll (1968)

* (out of 4)

A nerdy professor (Robert Wood) knows absolutely nothing about women, love, sex or anything that deals with the opposite sex. He goes to see another scientist who just happens to have created a machine that can make beautiful women.

Herschell Gordon Lewis' HOW TO MAKE A DOLL is a pretty boring film that's not going to appeal to too many people. The director will always be best known for his Blood Trilogy but he also made a great number of children's movies as well as softcore sex pictures. This one here seems like a mix between the two but those who enjoy the director's sex pictures will be disappointed that there's not even a hint of nudity here.

I'll be honest and admit that I'm really not sure who this film was aimed at. As a comedy there were a few funny bits but certainly not enough to fill up the 81 minute running time. After a while the nerdy scientist becomes rather boring as does the film. Even when the beautiful women show up there's just nothing overly thrilling seeing them in bathing suits. Again, I'm sure someone paid to watch this back in the day but it's pretty boring today.

Argh! How can I begin to try to describe this? It's all about this science-type professor named Percy who drives a hilarious car and doesn't care about girls, even though his creepy mother really wants some grandkids. His lab partner is a dirty old man who invents a machine that can build robot girls after twenty minutes of making annoying belching and screeching sounds. The robot girls love this old guy down so hard that he decides to go on with the rest of his life inside his computer. Then, he coaxes Percy into having these wild adventures so that he can soak them up and live vicariously through him. Well, at least that's what I think is happening, the movie isn't very clear. After some time of this, Percy decides that he's tired of living for his pervert robot partner and reprograms him to get away. I really hoped the movie would be over at this point, but it goes on for another five hours or so when Percy leaves the lab and meets up with the girl of his dreams. They go out for a date where he gives her not one, but two stuffed toy rabbits and they leer at another couple making out in the park. How romantic.

Now, I love bad movies, but this was really hard to take. Especially the neverending scenes of the computer wheels turning and the irritating noises coming from them. I would only recommend this to watch with lots of friends and booze. A prime candidate for MST-ification.

Nothing makes sense, Nobody can act, there's mostly one single room that looks like a unfinished Star Trek Original set and I love it. It sucks 100% but there's so much bizzare things said and happening, it's a feast. It's sexist af but who watches HGL films for their political correctnes? Just enjoy it, shut your brain off with whatever you like to take and get ready to laugh your ass off.

Alright, here's my theory, Herschell's name ending up on this nightmare had to be the result of his loss of some drunken poker game he had going with Brad Grinter, one night. Herschell lost, didn't have the money to pay up, so he allowed Grinter to use his name, to spare him the humiliation of the world finding out he's mentally retarded. Otherwise, who Knows what Grinter would have had to take credit for. But seriously, if you consider something like Year of the Yahoo or Blast-off girls to be bad, then you just haven't been searching hard enough, because How to make a doll is the absolute lowest of the low, at least as far as the work of Herschell Gordon Lewis goes. This movie will make Jimmy, The boy wonder look real interesting, real fast, Well, anyway, here goes...

The ridiculousness starts at the very beginning, it's about a little professor guy, Percy, he doesn't know of anything other than science and math, a 32 year old virgin who lives with his mother. I love how they play that "frustrated virgin" theme song when ever Percy is driving that thing he drives. A mere babe in the woods when it comes to the relationship between B and G, boy and girl, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. To make matters worse, Percy's mother is Rodneys mother from The Gruesome Twosome, so you know she's a hand full. If you haven't seen the Gruesome Twosome, it's actually 150,000 times better than this pile of pointlessness. Percy, being a frustrated virgin, who considers himself a creep, only really needs the companionship of a nice young lady. Percy would prefer the nice young lady at least be a real person, but, let's be honest, beggars can't be choosers. In a shocking plot twist, Percys scientist friend figures out a way to create artificial women, with some irritating machine. Is this Percys big chance to finally get a little experience with the opposite sex? Or does the machine just make a bunch of irritating noises that makes us feel like fools for buying such garbage? Buy Dr. Gore to find out.

Yikes!! We have quite a mess on our hands here, don't we? As far as I know, this is the worst film Herschell Lewis ever made, if not, then that's just sad. I'll be perfectly honest, when I watch this, I usually stop paying attention around the 20 minute mark, up until I replace the DVD with something watchable, like Decampitated. Like I said, This can be found, as an extra, on the Dr. Gore DVD from Something Weird Video. Dr. Gore should be the extra, because, believe it or not, it manages to be less entertaining than this one, how does that happen? How to make a Doll offers humor that juvenile doesn't even begin to describe, not to mention the countless hours of silly noises and scenes where nothing at all happens, really!! You got to be a veteran bad movie watcher to make it through this one. For something watchable, that doesn't involve gore, from Herschell Lewis check out Moonshine Mountain. For more Florida Bore check out Scream, Baby, Scream. for something worse than How to Make a Doll, check out Zombie '90. Sweet Jeepers, this movie sucks. 1/10