Overwrite login page
The normal method for creating a custom page--user--login.tpl.php is not to create an empty file, but to copy the  page.tpl.php supplied with the theme you're using into the templates/-directory of your sub-theme, rename it page--user--login.tpl.php, and edit the copy.

For instance, to remove the footer, just locate the markup in your copied page--user--login.tpl.php that is used to template the footer, and delete it!

&lt;div id="footer-wrapper"&gt;&lt;div class="section"&gt;

  &lt;?php if ($page['footer_firstcolumn'] || $page['footer_secondcolumn'] || $page['footer_thirdcolumn'] || $page['footer_fourthcolumn']): ?&gt;
    &lt;div id="footer-columns" class="clearfix"&gt;
      &lt;?php print render($page['footer_firstcolumn']); ?&gt;
      &lt;?php print render($page['footer_secondcolumn']); ?&gt;
      &lt;?php print render($page['footer_thirdcolumn']); ?&gt;
      &lt;?php print render($page['footer_fourthcolumn']); ?&gt;
    &lt;/div&gt; &lt;!-- /#footer-columns --&gt;
  &lt;?php endif; ?&gt;

  &lt;?php if ($page['footer']): ?&gt;
    &lt;div id="footer" class="clearfix"&gt;
      &lt;?php print render($page['footer']); ?&gt;
    &lt;/div&gt; &lt;!-- /#footer --&gt;
  &lt;?php endif; ?&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;!-- /.section, /#footer-wrapper --&gt;


The block above is an example of how this may look like (this is from a copy of Bartik), if you copy it from another theme, it may look different.

But to get rid of it, you pull it into your favourite text editor and delete all of it.