Shack Out on 101

Unrated

12/4/19551h 20m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ Four men and a girl! ~

Overview:

A greasy spoon diner provides a base for a spy smuggling nuclear secrets.

Director:

Edward Dein

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Key words:

beach
spy
diner
weight lifting

Cast

Terry Moore

~ as ~

Kotty

Frank Lovejoy

~ as ~

Prof. Sam Bastion

Keenan Wynn

~ as ~

George

Lee Marvin

~ as ~

Slob / Mr. Gregory

Whit Bissell

~ as ~

Eddie

Jess Barker

~ as ~

Artie

Donald Murphy

~ as ~

Pope

Frank De Kova

~ as ~

Prof. Claude Dillon

Len Lesser

~ as ~

Perch

Fred Gabourie

~ as ~

Lookout

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

John Chard
Written 5 year(s) ago
9
Slob's got an eight cylinder body and a 2 cylinder mind.

Shack Out on 101 is directed by Edward Dein and Dein co-writes the screenplay with Mildred Dein. It stars Terry Moore, Frank Lovejoy, Lee Marvin, Keenan Wynn and Whit Bissell.Music is by Paul Dunlap and cinematography by Floyd Crosby.

An isolated diner on California's 101 highway provides the backdrop of for nuclear secrets, spies, federal agents and sexual boiling points.

What a wonderful hot-pot of the weird and wonderful world of the era's "red scare" momentum. Often inserted into film noir dictionaries or "commie" thriller paragraphs, the truth is, is that it's a film very much of a kinky oblique niece section of film making. This is the kind of picture that will either have you utterly giggling away with a knowing sense of enjoyment, or conversely have you annoyed and possibly thinking you should have spent your time some place else.

It's low budget stuff that's mostly confined to the diner of the title, but Dein brings a joyous combination of genuine menacing thrills and sequences that make you feel you have stepped into another movie (witness the whole snorkel wearing sequences). Moore is a sensuous treat as the waitress babe right in the middle of things who is making every male on the premises unscrew their brain and lob it into the dep fat fryer. There's a slight touch of misogyny in the air, but the female half of the Dein film making duo ensure it's actually kept in check.

Marvin steals the pic, where we get an early glimpse of what we would come to know as a dominant screen presence. Moore would speak very highly of Marvin, which obviously goes against the grain of the character he plays (Slob!), and Marvin and Wynn would form a friendship that lasted their lifetime. These are nice tid-bids form what is a love it or hate it film. So go on, watch it and see if you can pigeon hole it. I loved it. 9/10