Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

How to Make a Doll Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 24, 2016

Note: This film is available as part of The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast.

Mention the initials “H.G.” to most people, and my hunch is virtually everyone will default to thinking about H.G. Wells, the legendary author whose science fiction masterpieces resulted in such memorable films as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau and War of the Worlds. Certain fans who have a slightly different definition of what constitutes a memorable film might have a variant reaction to those same initials, however, positing one Herschell Gordon Lewis instead of Mr. Wells. Lewis has long been known by the sobriquet “Godfather of Gore,” and his early exploitation pictures were, for their day, amazingly overt in their depiction of what ultimately came to be called “splatter”. Lewis, who only just fairly recently died at the age of 90, had an interesting if not especially distinguished career, though it’s notable that Lewis maintained a more than abundant sense of humor about his films and his contributions to the supposed art of cinema. Lewis’ filmography (it’s a bit of a stretch to actually call it an oeuvre) hasn’t been especially well served in the Blu-ray era, though there have been at least a few releases of his work, including The Blood Trilogy, The Wizard of Gore / The Gore Gore Girls and The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis. Now, in what amounts to an elegy of sorts for Lewis, Arrow Video has assembled what will certainly go down in the annals of the Blu-ray era as one of the most lavish deluxe sets produced, at least within the confines of what can only be accurately described as “cult cinema”. Along with a collection of fourteen films (nine making their Blu-ray debut), Arrow also includes a glut of bonus content (some with Lewis’ involvement), as well as impressive packaging and non disc supplements.

Lovers of cult television (and you know who you are) may remember a short-lived series called My Living Doll which eked out a season in 1964- 65 and which featured Robert Cummings as the caretaker of a kind of childlike (but way full grown) android played by the inimitable Julie Newmar. The series had kind of whimsical elements that made it a sibling of sorts to another 1964 debut, Bewitched, though in this case the interplay between the focal couple had the male as the one with brains and the female as the often confused bystander. It’s probably not beyond the realm of possibility that My Living Doll provided the germ of an idea for Lewis, who co-wrote How to Make a Doll (under his frequent pseudonym Sheldon Seymour). Able to be more explicitly sexual than the Cummings — Newmar series ever was, How to Make a Doll posits a nerdy guy named Percy Corley (Robert Wood) who is, like most nerds, totally book smart but completely ineffectual with the babes.

That problem gets solved in a super modern high tech way (at least for 1968), when Percy’s buddy Dr. West (Jim Vance) shows him a supercomputer that can create anything it’s programmed to, kind of like a late sixties version of a 3D printer. It’s not long before Percy finally has the girl of his dreams (Bobbi West), though of course things don’t segue instantly to happily ever after. Instead, Lewis indulges in what can only be seen as a kind of prescient depiction of virtual reality, with Percy disappearing into a diaphanous (and really soft focused) world where he’s set upon by a whole host of buxom and scantily clad females.

This is another Lewis film that, quite like Just for the Hell of It, seems to be displaced in time by a decade or more. Its depiction of more or less brain dead females being created as sexual playthings for men would seem to be more a part of the (early) Mad Men era than a time when names like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem were beginning to have national recognition. Of course, while feminism was in its nascent stages, there were still “holdouts” like Marabel Morgan and her infamous The Total Woman, so maybe Lewis captured something of the cultural zeitgeist of 1968 despite himself.

How to Make a Doll is just flat out goofy. It’s often kind of funny, seemingly intentionally at times (it’s often hard to tell with a Lewis film), but it’s also kind of a bait and switch when you get right down to it. It’s obvious that this was meant to harken back more to Lewis’ “nudie cutie” efforts than to any of his splatter offerings, but while sex is an obvious focal point here, this is a pretty chaste affair, and there’s not even any real nudity in it. There is, however, a hilariously out of date IBM “supercomputer” that will certainly delight anyone old enough to remember punchcards and (heaven forfend) memory typewriters.

How to Make a Doll Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Arrow has included some general verbiage about the transfers in this set:

All film materials sourced for restoration were scanned in 2K resolution on a pin registered 4K Lasergraphics Director Scanner at Deluxe Media, Burbank. Film grading and restoration was completed at Deluxe Restoration, London. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris and light scratches were removed through a combination of digital restoration tools. Overall image stability and density fluctuation was also improved when possible.

The original mono soundtracks were transferred from 35mm prints by Deluxe Audio Services, Los Angeles, and were conformed and restored at Deluxe Restoration, London.

Additional audio conform for How to Make a Doll and Just for the Hell of It by David Mackenzie.

Although the best existing elements were sourced for this project and every attempt was made to present the films in this collection in the highest quality possible, some of the films still exhibit varying degrees of damage that could not be digitally repaired to our satisfaction. The condition of the existing materials for Moonshine Mountain, The Gruesome Twosome, How to Make a Doll and This Stuff'll Kill Ya all contained extreme levels of dirt, scratches and debris as well as many instances of torn or missing frames. They all exhibited heavy degrees of colour fading as well. Likewise, the print sections sourced to complete A Taste of Blood were both faded and heavily scratched. Throughout the restoration workflow process, our priority was to retain the original photochemical look of the films rather than create unwanted digital artefacts by heavy handed picture cleanup. Therefore, many of the films in this collection exhibit "warts and all" appearance, in keeping with their distribution history and physical condition.

Restoration supervised by James White, Arrow Films.

Additionally, this film comes with the following disclaimer:

How to Make a Doll has been exclusively restored for this release by Arrow Films. The film was restored in 2K resolution from a 35mm print, as the original negative has been lost. Due to the rough condition of the film elements available, this presentation exhibits some colour fading that could only be corrected to a minimal degree through digital grading. There are also incidents of heavy scratches and similar damage that have been left intact. There is occasional loose audio synch but this is as per the original source materials.

How to Make a Doll is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. This is another transfer that has moments of being at least relatively acceptable, but has extremely bad damage at other moments. The credits are very badly marred with chemical degradation and lots of scratches and even tears, and that same assortment of issues crops up again (maybe even worse) during the virtual reality sequence which begins at circa 42:51. There are long vertical scratches in abundance throughout this presentation, and occasional hairs in the gate. Colors have faded noticeably, and a lot of the transfer looks kind of beige to brown. As with many other transfers in this set, grain is organic looking but pretty coarse a lot of the time.

How to Make a Doll Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

How to Make a Doll features a decent sounding LPCM mono track, one that has quite a bit of hiss and crackle, especially in the opening moments, but which provides adequate support for the kind of soul jazz score. There's occasional slight distortion, but some of the goofy sound effects for the computer sound relatively full despite a generally boxy sound. Dialogue is generally clearly rendered despite an occasional pop or crack.

How to Make a Doll Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Arrow has packaged this set a little unusually, with two films per disc and one set of supplements for both movies available from a main menu. While some of the supplements are obviously geared toward one individual film, others are a bit more general in nature, and so I'm listing the complete supplemental package for each particular disc rather than for each individual film. The supplements for How to Make a Doll and The Wizard of Gore are:

• Montag Speaks! (1080p; 19:33) is an interview with Ray Sager.


• Stephen Thrower on The Wizard of Gore (1080p; 10:20)


• The Gore the Merrier (1080p; 9:05) features Jeremy Kasten, who remade The Wizard of Gore.


• The Incredibly Strange Film Show (1080p; 40:03) is an episode of the cult documentary series, focused on Lewis and Friedman.


• Wizard of Gore Trailer (1080p; 5:04)


• Wizard of Gore Audio Commentary features Mike Vraney from Something Weird Video with Herschell Gordon Lewis.


• Herschell Gordon Lewis Introduction to How to Make a Doll (1080p; 1:48) is available under the play menu for that film.


• Herschell Gordon Lewis Introduction to The Wizard of Gore (1080p; 1:56) is available under the play menu for that film.

How to Make a Doll Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

How to Make a Doll is just flat out silly, but it's at least (maybe) intentionally played for laughs. Technical merits are problematic, but the supplementary package is enjoyable.