In the late 70's there seemed to be an influx of low-budget spoofs hitting theatres that took various jabs at the popular movies and television shows of the day. Perhaps inspired by the success of "Saturday Night Live" there was quality ones like The Kentucky Fried Movie, mediocre ones like The Groove Tube, and the subject of our review here: Loose Shoes. It's hard to believe, that amongst all of these half-assed efforts, this is the absolute worst of the bunch. Granted it doesn't hit the "please gouge my eyes out" level of modern parodies like Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans, but this collection of movie trailer lampoons has nary a (even mild) laugh in sight with the makers resorting to sex humour, urine jokes, and people in funny costumes to try and tickle your funny bone.

They've certainly tried to pack as many into the films' seventy-three-minute running time as they can, aping biographies ("The Howard Huge Story"), biker movies ("Skateboarders from Hell"), horror flicks ("Invasion of the Penis Snatchers"), and everything in between. However, most of them just aren't given enough time to try and wring some laughs out of their absurdity and the makers obviously have no idea what made these b-movies work not even being successful emulating the already over-the-top trailers that littered the drive-ins back then. The worst sketch is most definitely the war spoof, "Just a Run in the Sun" and, if you happen to be paying attention by the time it shows up, the mildly racist take-off on musicals, "Dark Town After Dark" is where the movie's title was derived from as it's mentioned in one of the songs.

Possibly the only real reason to even watch Loose Shoes is simply because of all the familiar faces on hand making token appearances before they moved on to bigger, better careers. The most predominant actor, and featured on the box art almost every time this has been released by various public domain scouring video companies, is Bill Murray, who gets stuck in the prison movie spoof, "Three Chairs for Lefty". But if you keep your eyes peeled you'll see Howard Hesseman ("WKRP in Cincinnati"), comedian Buddy Hackett, Betty Thomas ("Hill Street Blues", director of Private Parts and more), Ed Lauter, Avery Schreiber, Susan Tyrell, and b-movie favourite Sid Haig (The Devil's Rejects, Spider-Baby) show-up in bit roles. In fact, it was much more interesting picking all of them out rather than paying much attention to whatever joke they were trying to make at the time.

Another reason you might want to check this out, though I think by now you've figured out I wouldn't recommend that at all, is to see them poke fun at such things as Billy Jack, The Pom Pom Girls, and Return to Macon County. All fun little drive-in flicks in their own right and all worth watching instead of this drivel. Which is too bad since director/co-writer Ira Miller and his three writing partners (Dan Praiser, Charley Smith, and Royce D. Applegate) hit upon all the genres but fail to come up with any consistent laughs instead piling on juvenile humour and plentiful boobies (which, I guess, I can't complain about too much).

Even though it was filmed in 1977, Loose Shoes didn't actually get released until three years later and, after seeing it, it's easy to see why. It's a sloppy collection of spoofs, crowding each other for room, and joins pornographer-turned-director Chuck Vincent's American Tickler (which featured Joe Piscopo) as one of the most intolerable of the lot. (Chris Hartley, 2/24/09)

Directed By: Ira Miller.
Written By: Dan Praiser, Charley Smith, Ira Miller, Royce D. Applegate.

Starring: Bill Murray, Buddy Hackett, Sid Haig, Dan Barrows.

aka: Quackers; Coming Attractions.