Starhops (1978)

Never mind the title or the Star Wars-ish opening text crawl—the only celestial things in this grubby sex comedy are the stars emblazoned on swimsuits worn by the main characters while serving customers at a drive-in restaurant. After owner Jerry (Dick Miller) quits the business, two of his waitresses, Angel (Jillian Kesner) and Cupcake (Sterling Frazier), take over. They spruce up the place, hire French cook Danielle (Dorothy Buhrman), and switch to barely-there costumes. Meanwhile, an evil businessman who wants to build a gas station at the drive-in’s location sends his son, Norman (Paul Ryan), to sabotage the restaurant from within. This leads to the scene during which he plants frogs and rats throughout the kitchen during a health inspection. Whatever. All the hallmarks of low-rent sexploitation are present in Starhops, from bad acting to leering camera angles to tacky sex puns. Perhaps because both the writer and director are female, the movie (which was released in both R- and PG-rated versions), stops short of the softcore humping one usually finds in pictures of this ilk. Nonetheless, it’s hard to praise Starhops for restraint given the lowbrow nature of the humor. In one scene, Norman gets hot and bothered while misinterpreting an overheard conversation between Danielle and a plumber who’s trying to wedge something into a pipe. Hearing Danielle exclaim “It will not fit—it is too big!” prompts Norman strip off his clothes, rush to Danielle, and suggest a threesome. Excepting the too-brief sequence featuring Miller at his manic best, Starhops offers all the shortcomings of the sex-comedy genre and none of the thrills.

Starhops: LAME