Shack Out on 101

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 ****

When the producers at lowly but lovable Monogram decided to sell an upgraded product, they replaced their banner with that of Allied Artists. This AA release definitely retains that absurd old Monogram spirit. Is it a comedy/satire? A spy spoof? An anti-commie rant? An Ed-Woodian comment on twisted sex mores? A love story? All these things? None of the above? No one knows for sure. The late David Newman said it best in his seminal "Guilty Pleasures" article for Film Comment -- "at no time is it possible to get a handle on this movie." There's a scene where Wynn and Marvin attack a neon swordfish sign that is as nutty as any George Zucco and a guy-in-a-gorilla-suit nonsense from the studio's glory days. Lee Marvin's outrageous method-acting licks seem to come from another planet, and why is everyone so crazy about Terry Moore? Or are the boys really crazy about each other? Fans of Seinfeld be sure to look out for Uncle Leo when he was a young thespian -- and already doing the annoying shtick he later perfected in that series.

The shack out on Highway 101 just north of San Diego is an oceanside greasy-spoon hung with nautical bric-a-brac like a Red Lobster franchise. It's also the regional headquarters for an subversive spy ring and the claustrophobic setting for one of the oddest fish spawned during the Red Scare paranoia of the post-war years.

Keenan Wynn owns the joint, with short-order cook Lee Marvin and waitress Terry Moore as his live-in help, an arrangement as uncomfortable for Moore as it is convenient for Marvin, who can't keep his hands or lips off her. Regulars include Frank Lovejoy (as an unspecified 'professor' romancing Moore), salesman Whit Bissell, an old fisherman making 'deliveries' right off the boat, and a couple of drivers for theAcme Poultry Company who come in for coffee and cherry pie. In this entrepôt big wads of cash get traded for tiny slivers of microfilm. And operatives losing their nerve or asking too many questions get dead.

Few of those movies which the studios felt constrained to issue in testimony to their rock-solid Americanism were much good (and audiences shunned them like week-old mackerel). But they shared an utter lack of humor and a suffocating tone of moral urgency. This one is more perplexing. The prevailing tone remains light, at times veering toward farce, to an extent that the very real possibility presents itself that the whole thing is a very sly put-on.

One morning when Wynn and Marvin, stripped to their waists, engage in some weight-lifting, Wynn insists that his chest muscles be referred to as 'pecs.' Marvin retorts 'I'm very happy with my pecs,' whereupon they call in Moore to judge which of them has the better legs. In another scene, Moore, lighted through the holes of a hanging colander, looks like she contracted some exotic contagion. But then the movie shifts abruptly into cloak-and-dagger episodes right out of B-movies of the international intrigue genre. Towards the end, the heart sinks as it becomes clear that the movie means us to take it seriously. But serious about what? Never is the word 'Communist' uttered.

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.

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.