Shack Out on 101

The most important thing about this amazing piece is that despite its limitations from the buck fifty budget to the sledgehammered propagandist overtones to the all-over-the-place acting, this is a highly entertaining and enigmatic movie-going experience. That is not to say that it makes a lick of sense. But when you are treated to as much tear stained laughs and anvil-forged he-man dialogue, does it matter? I didn't even intend to see this one but a revival house ran it as the second feature here in Hollywood a few years back and I sat and watched and was blown away. I can't recall what the top billed film was but I sure recall this quintessential (yet almost unknown) tough guy movie. Screw all the proto-Nietzchean questions of Man and Superman, existential angst and jingoistic integrity discussion. This is pure lusty FUN... the story of good girls gone bad and bad men gone worse!

For starters, here's an object lesson on how someone with screen charisma can overcome incredible problems, including a spotty on-the-nose script and zero production values. In this case, young Lee Marvin (SLOB) absolutely obliterates, yanking all our attention away from whatever else is happening (generally not much) in any given scene. This IS a compliment. His infectiously sullen scowl and alienated bad boy 'tude is so blinding that even Keenan Wynn, quite the smouldering hambone of hate himself, is superseded. I can't really recall all the ins and outs of the thinly veiled communist parablizing (something about smuggled nuclear secrets), but I sure recall Marvin hitting up a very comely Terry Moore and that the sparks fly. Truly, there is as much iconoclastic rebellious poseuring here as in Brando's much more famous (but no better) THE WILD ONE or any three Clint Eastwood movies. There may not have been any visible plot but the dialogue is diamond hard and I promise the blisteringly melodramatic interactions will have you laughing harder than you will at anything Adam Sandler puts out.

Amusingly odd second-feature from Allied Artists Pictures stars Terry Moore as a beanery waitress who has high ambitions--studying for her Civil Service exams! Moore and restaurant-owner Keenan Wynn end up tangling with nefarious Lee Marvin, posing as a short-order cook. Hilariously outré mix of moody melodramatics, campy nostalgia, gruff film noir and patriotic flag-waving. Moore is quite appealing spitting out her juicy, hard-bitten purple prose, Wynn also good (if puzzlingly dopey) in a supporting role apparently written for stray laughs. In fact, the entire film is amiably half-witted and almost endearing. Fine cinematography by Floyd Crosby includes an amazing opening shot of Terry on the beach! ** from ****

I find it tremendously rewarding to see all these enthusiastic comments about this movie here on the IMDb. This is a film that no-one ever seems to have heard of, and it's a guilty pleasure in every way. It makes NO sense, it is essentially claustrophobically confined to one cheap set within which a stream of unlikely characters played by great quirky actors parades by. There is no narrative structure at all, and you're not even sure what the point is by the end, but thanks especially to Lee Marvin and Keenan Wynn, you're fascinated all along the way.

I haven't seen it in years now (something happened to my videotape of it, recorded off of TNT many years ago), but I'd consider it one of my favorite movies on the basis of the fact that I could watch it over and over and always find it satisfying.

It's hard to recommend it for any rational reason, and yet I'd urge any film buff with even a tiny sense of the absurd to watch it some time before you die. You'll never see anything remotely like it, for good reason. But it gives you faith in the concept that just about anything can get produced, if you only believe strongly enough.....

Wow, what a surprise. Regardless of what I expected, here is what I got...confusion, claustrophobia, tour de force acting, laughs, intrigue, action, and yes...arousal...the arousal coming from the talky kissing scenes involving the very sexy Terry Moore and her scientist boyfriend. One just wants to push him aside and take over where he started. Goofy plot, where virtually every customer in this diner seems to be somehow involved with spying. Especially puzzling is comparing the very Americany, bad boy, fun loving persona of Lee Marvin, to that of his eventually revealed, anti everything American spy. But then again, I've never met a spy. Maybe they're all fun like that! Or maybe I've seen too many 'normal' spy movies. Still, one has to see this performance by a young Marvin. He absolutely makes it clear that as an actor, he has always had it. Even as a very young man, he still has that 'voice' and can be very scary at times. While watching this movie, I found myself thinking, that when Marvin was a fighting marine in real life on those Japanese held islands, his fox hole buddies must have felt pretty safe with him around. Just a strong, strong presence. Best thing about this movie is the racy dialogue, which is mostly very believable, and truly has you wondering what they are going to say next, while trying to figure out the depth of the relationships between the main characters. Can't believe I have never heard of this movie. It's a good one.

SHACK OUT ON 101, Edward Dein's 1955 minimalist masterpiece of Cold War weirdness remains, over 50 years later, one of Hollywood's strangest concoctions.

A dilapidated seaside beanery just north of San Diego is the setting for this outré noir tale about a group of disparate folks who become either directly or peripherally involved with Commie spies and stolen microfilm. The unforgettable cast includes Keenan Wynn as the diner's proprietor, a man obsessed with his "pecs" and always at odds with Lee Marvin as Slob, the animalistic short-order cook who's obsessed with va-va-voom Terry Moore who drives all the guys wild as the put-upon waitress who seems to only have eyes for Frank Lovejoy, "the professor" (of what we're not exactly sure) and Whit Bissell as the annoyingly chatty salesman who wanders in and out of the picture whenever a couple of uninterrupted minutes of bizarre banter is required.

This is not a normal film in any true sense of the word. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense and, apart from aligning itself with the then current trend of pseudo patriotic, anti- communist espionage films, it isn't easy to guess what was really on the minds of those who produced this delirious little oddity. At times hilarious (possibly intentional, possibly not) and grimly somber, SHACK OUT ON 101 defies rational description and should most definitely be experienced at least once, or in the case with some of us, as often as humanly possible.