"Skidoo is something only for Preminger-watchers or for people whose minds need pressing by a heavy object...the movie has the form of comedy, but its almost complete lack of humor, its retarded contemporaneousness...its sometimes beautiful and expensive looking San Francisco locations; and its indomitable denial that disaster is at hand (apparent from almost the opening sequence) - all give the film an almost undeniable Preminger stamp."
– Vincent Canby, New York Times

"Otto Preminger's Skidoo fails mostly because it lacks spirit...Preminger seems unable to invest his film with any lightness or spontaneity."
– Roger Ebert, December 27th, 1968

"Skidoo opens and closes in clever fashion, but in between, Otto Preminger's film is a dreary, unfunny attempt at contemporary comedy. Screenplay is a sort of updated Damon Runyon plot, in which allegedly loveable, old-time gangster types are foiled by hippies. Static photography and tame editing compound a weak script."
– Variety, January 1st, 1968

"Making Zabriskie Point [1970] look like Easy Rider [1969], Preminger and screenwriter Doran William Cannon (also responsible for Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud, 1970) misconceived a story involving a mob hit man who is recalled from retirement to take out a jailed ex-colleague....With his unerring feel for the taste of stoned teenagers, Preminger loaded up his cast with a bevy of bloated B-list stars, from Carol Channing to Cesar Romero to Frank Gorshin, not to mention a loony Mickey Rooney, whose lysergic dance number is one of the movie's "highlights." The movie's total unavailability has turned it into a cult object, a status it hardly deserves, although its mind-boggling ineptness is impossible to tear your eyes away from.
- Sam Adams, Philadelphia City Paper

"...in my view, Skidoo offers irrefutable proof that not only was Preminger capable of making a comedy, but that he was years ahead of his time with that wonderfully loopy and much-maligned creation...Skidoo is such a wild assault on the sense that it's hard to imagine the film was ever made. Under Preminger's direction, LSD is a liberating and empowering tool...It also allows an astonishing number of guest stars in the Alcatraz sequences (including Rooney, Peter Lawford, Richard Kiel, Burgess Meredith and Frank Gorshin) to pretend they are tripping on acid. The last two actors are especially fun – imagine the Penguin and Riddler on acid!"
- Phil Hall, Film Threat

"This is one of my favorite celluloid misfires of all time! A hip, fab, counterculture wannabee, featuring a severely-screwball line-up of Hollywood cronies, all trying to keep their careers afloat by jumping blindly onto the '60s bandwagon of groovy hippies, free love and hallucinogenic chemicals...how can you NOT love a movie that ends with Groucho and Austin toking a roach as all the end credits are SUNG!? I guess it all seemed like a good idea at the time -- and while under the influence, it still is. Truly, this is a movie to be cherished by Badfilm Aficionados for centuries to come.
- Steven Puchalski, Shock Cinema

"Skidoo is certainly more eccentric than Preminger's more acclaimed, conservative films (Laura [1944], The Man with the Golden Arm [1955], or Anatomy of a Murder [1959]). The narrative is sometimes too 60s, being irritatingly kooky, but as a fine comedic treatment of drug-taking, this is a real treat."
- www.channel 4.com

"Abysmal mishmash with top talent abused; clearly intended as satirical farce, but in fact one of the most woebegone movies ever made."
- Halliwell's Film Guide

" Unspeakable..."
- Illustrated London News

Compiled by Millie de Chirico