Shack Out On 101 (1955) A Whacky Beach Beanery Beatnik Noir

"It's a Gas."

Jazz Music - the black screen brightens to a title card proclaiming an Allied Artist Pictures Corporation presents... 

Terry Moore as Kotty has top billing. Terry was in Mighty Joe Young. The female lead whose two leading men were Ben Johnson and Joe Young a stop motion giant ape produced by the same creative team responsible for the original King Kong (1933) also on the team was a "first technician" named Ray Harryhausen. 

In this Terry costars with Noir vet Frank Lovejoy who appeared in In A lonely Place, The Sound Of Fury, I Was A Communist For The FBI, The Hitch-Hiker, and The Crooked Web. He plays Sam Bastion a government professor running the research department on a cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator.

Below the title we get - Co-starring Keenan Wynn and Lee Marvin. 

Wynn starred in the only genuine Noir Thin Man film - Song of the Thin Man. In that he plays a hip jazz musician spouting lots of be bop jazz jive. Later he shows up as an uncredited bartender in Touch of Evil, then in a couple of memorable Transitional Noirs, as Colonel "Bat" Guano in Dr. Strangelove, and as Yost / Fairfax in Point Blank. He also had a cameo in Once Upon A Time In The West as the sheriff at the McBain auction, and later in Neo Noir The Killer Inside Me (1976), and a lot of TV and forgettable movies in between. Wynn plays George the Shack's owner.

Lee Marvin of course became a major star. Marvin plats Slob. Marvin started in early TV. But he became a major film star. Besides his Classic Noir (The Big Heat, Bad Day At Black Rock, Violet Saturday, I Died A Thousand Times) he also did a lot of 1950s 60s TV. He was in The Wild One with Brando a cult classic ., He was star of Transitional Noir The Killers a remake, and Point Blank (some consider it the first Neo Noir), he then appeared in a string of hits, Emperor Of the North, Paint Your Wagon, Cat Balou, The Professionals, The Dirty Dozen, Monte Walsh, Pocket Money, Prime Cut, The Big Red One, and Death Hunt. 

Terry Moore as Kotty

 Frank Lovejoy as Sam Bastion

Keenan Wynn as George

Lee Marvin as Slob

Whit Bissel as Eddie

Len Lesser as Perch

The rest of the cast featured Whit Bissel, another Noir vet (Somewhere In The Night, Brute Force, Canon City, He Walked By Night, Raw Deal, Side Street, The Killer That Stalked New York, The Sellout, The Turning Point). Jess Barker (Scarlet Street, Reign Of Terror, Racket Squad). With Donald Murphy (Frankenstein's Daughter)as Pepe, Jess Barker as Artie, Fred Gabourie (Highway Dragnet) as lookout, Len Lesser (Kelly's Heroes, and Uncle Leo on Seinfeld) as Perch, and Frank DeKova (Split Second, and also remembered as Chief Wild Eagle on F Troop) as Prof. Claude Dillon. 

Donald Murphy as Pepe and Jess Barker as Artie

Shack Out on 101 was directed by Edward Dein noted more for TV, (Hawaiian Eye, The Wild Wild West). It was written by Edward Dein and Mildred Dein. The Cinematography was by Floyd Crosby (High Noon), and Music was by Paul Dunlap. Opening credit music was A SUNDAY KIND OF LOVE Written by Barbara Belle, Louis Prima, Anita Leonard and Stan Rhodes (Credited and used in score but not vocally).

Story wise the whole piece is supposed to take place in and around a remote roadside lunch counter someplace North of San Diego along the Pacific, on old US 101 before this part was decommissioned on July 1, 1964, replaced by I-5. (see below on 1950 Texaco road map)

The actual filming site of "The Shack" instead being on 101, was shot on the Pacific Coast Highway (California State Route 1) on what looks very much like Bass Rock Beach about eighteen miles slightly North and West of Malibu. End of geography lesson. 

Story

Breakers crashing on the beach. We follow the foam wash racing up the sand to a pair of feet. We pan slowly up from the feet eyeballing a beautiful babe a "real tomato" with "everything plus" in a two piece bathing suit sunning herself. Kotty is the waitress at Georges "Shack." 

Walking up the beach towards Kotty is Slob the "Shack" cook. Slob is collecting seashells. He takes his latest score and holds it up to his ear. When he spots Kotty Slob silently sneaks up beside her. Slob kneel down on one knee. He simultaneously bends over grabs Kotty by her jaw and the back of her head and plants a wet kiss on her lips. 

Kotty struggles, grabs Slobs neck and his hair and flips herself over. She's beating on Slob and he picks her up and throws her into the backwash. 

Slob laughs. Kotty starts grabbing rocks and starts to lob them at Slob. Slob runs up the wooden railroad tie stairway up the embankment to the Shack. 

He stops at the clothesline by the back door and looks back down the embankment at Kotty. Still looking at her, he grabs her slip that was hanging on the line and rubs it in the sand and laughing at her, throws it on the ground. 

Kotty fumes down on the beach. 

In the side the "Shack" George comes down on a gangway from his room in the loft carrying a sack of change. 

The Shack is festooned with nautical knickknacks. Japanese glass net floats, scraps of nets with cork floats hanging from rope lines are used for  railings, a larger net is also hanging down from the ceiling, a stuffed swordfish, dried puffers, sea shells, a few tiki carvings, kerosene lamps, ships lanterns, framed pictures of sailing ships, dried starfish, ship models, a hula dancer, a ship in a bottle hangs above the lunch counter order window, a barometer, some sea fans decorate the wall behind the dual coffee pot warmer, and add in a few porthole windows, the whole nine yards. Electric oscillating fans sit on shelves on the walls to provide air circulation, no AC in in the Shack in 1955. 

A cash register sits at the right end of the counter. Arraigned on checkered cloth mats at intervals along the lunch counter, are menu holders, your standard, aluminum, spring loaded napkin dispensers,  accompanied with salt and pepper shakers, glass sugar pourers, pottery condiment jars, and ashtrays. 

The lunch counter lined with barstools is opposite the front entrance from the highway. Behind it is the kitchen. To the right of the kitchen is Slob's room, and to the left is Kotty's bedroom. The dining room has checker tablecloth booths along the matching checkered curtain windows. One front window has a neon Budweiser sign. A neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign hangs up high, along George's loft wall. The dining room also has a phone booth, a juke box, one of those blue horizontal Pepsi soft drink coolers, and a cigarette machine. 

When George gets to the counter he opens the cash register and dumps in the change. Slob comes out of the kitchen carrying a stack of plates out from the kitchen. The Jazz music ends.

Slob: I got a good mind to drop these dishes.

George: You gotta good mind?

"You gotta good mind?"

Slob: Oh its six o'clock already and the tomato is still out there parading for the seagulls. Puttin' dishes away is her job. Ain't it enough that I do the cooking and the cleaning? Every time I talk about the tomato you get busy.

George [ slamming closed the cash draw]: The tomato's got a name, Kotty, everybody's got a name! 

Slob: Oh yea, how come you call me Slob when my name's Leo? 

George:  Because you look like a slob. Even when you're clean you look dirty. That to me is not a Leo that is a Slob. 

Slob: Ha now that's funny. 

George: Yea funny your laughing me into bankruptcy. 

Kotty bursts in on them from the kitchen.

Kotty [shaking her slip in Slobs face]: Why did you do it! [turning towards George and showing him her slip]: Look what he did he's crazy. [turning back to Slob]: You're not gonna get away with it, you're getting me a new one.

Slob: I'm gettin' you nothin'.

Kotty begins to hit him with the slip. George pulls her away.

Slob: You do that again and I'll whack you good. 

George: If you hit her I'll make you eat it. 

Slob: Yea I'd like to see that 

George starts coming at Slob who backs away.

Slob: I was only having fun

Kotty [throwing her slip in Slobs face]: So was I. 

Kotty storms off to her room. 

George and Slob are still discussing the matter with George telling him that the next time he's in San Diego he's going to buy Kotty a new petticoat out of an expensive store and take t out of his paycheck when the front entrance door bell chimes as professor Sam Bastion walks into the Shack. 

Sam is carrying a book on seashells which he tosses over to Slob. Tells him that he think Slob will find it interesting. When Sam asks what the two are bickering about George shows him what Slob did to Kotty's petticoat. That gets Sam angry (he and Kotty got a thing going on) and he tells Slob that anything he "starts with Kotty he's going to finish with me," and that he's going to buy her a new one. Sam then tells Slob to get back to his greasy griddle. 

Sam goes back to see Kotty. A Kotty leitmotif plays. She starts to tell him what happened on he beach but he interrupts her explaining that he already know about it. 

Sam: Slob's got an eight cylinder body and a 2 cylinder mind.

Kotty then goes into a spiel about her preparing for a Civil Service exam. She wants out of waitressing and she wants Sam to be proud of her. She tells him that instead of coming to see her in this crummy joint she wants him to see her in a big government building sitting behind a desk, doing something important. They embrace and kiss while Sam asks her civil service type questions, it's quaintly laughable. 

Cut to the kitchen. Perch a fisherman, is in the kitchen dumping a basket of the fish of the day in the sink. Slob walks in on Perch.  Perch makes a remark about Slob loosing the last time and Slob counters with it wouldn't have happen if he hadn't caught him on a full stomach. 

So they start up a variation of the old handkerchief dule. Each has an end of a towel in their teeth and they start punching on each other. 

This is the first indication that this ain't your regular Noir. 

As they fight they start banging into, and knocking things around in the kitchen. George has to come in and break it up. 

When George goes back into the dining room Slob and Perch start talking about the fish loudly about how the best fish come from Mexican waters, but at the same time, Slob is counting out bills and Perch is passing him a pill container with clear sides with something inside that he takes out of his jacket. They start whispering instead of talking and then, loudly Slob asks Perch if he wants to hang out one of these nights cause he can get some "hot tomatoes" lined up. 

So Perch heads out of the kitchen and towards the door. George leans over to the order window and asks Slob what you guys cooking up. He heard them whispering. Thinking George is on to them, and  while his back is towards the dinning room, Perch pulls out a switch blade. We get a nice reverse shot of Slob holding a meat cleaver just out of site below Georges head.  When George tells Slob that there better be no funny business with the fish, the tension drains, and Perch puts the knife back in his pocket.

Right after Perch splits, Eddie a salesman buddy of George's walks into the Shack. Slob comes in from the kitchen and Sam comes out of Kotty's room and they all  converge at the lunch counter. Sam asks Eddie how he's doing  Eddie has what we call now PTSD let over from his war service. Both he and George were wounded on D-Day.

George and Eddie are planning a scuba vacation down in Acapulco, Mexico. Eddie has a sports catalog with all the gear they'll need. Flippers, snorkels, dive masks. When Sam asks about spearguns Eddie starts getting queasy. He doesn't like the sharp progs or the though of killing fish. George tells him that the fish are cold blooded,  Sam mentions that the elastic harpoons are effective, but the carbon dioxide triggered ones have more power. 

Kotty comes out says hello to Eddie and then she and Sam go outside to smooch their goodbyes passing two regular customers who are drivers for, what else, "Acme Poultry." When Kotty comes back in the two drivers start putting the make on her asking her for a date. Both of them grab her playfully by the arms and she fights them off. Slightly upset by the way they treat Kotty George tells them both to scram.  

Things start to go Noirsville when we cut to Slob in his room, we watch him acting very sneakily. He locks his door, he pulls down his shade, he shuts his curtains. 

Under his cot Slob checks the position of a trunk with a piece of wire that drops down from the bed frame as a sort of marker. When it checks that it hasn't been disturbed he slides it out from under the bed.

From inside it, he pulls out a slide viewer and looks at the piece of film Perch slipped him it's a scientific equation he checks it against equations he has written down in a notebook. Aha!, so Slob isn't what he seems. When he's satisfied that they match he burns the film and puts the slide viewer and notebook back in trunk, slides it into place back below his cot.  

Back out in the at the lunch counter Eddie and George discuss both Eddie's phobia for violence, and George's hopeless crush on Kotty. eventually Kotty comes out of her room and with a puzzled look on her face asks to feel both Georges and Eddies palms. She tells them that for truck drivers they both have smoother hands that either of them. Fade to black.

The next morning we gat another whacky sequence where George is laying shirtless on the lunch counter lifting a barbell, its part of his and Slob's morning routine. 

He's soon joined by Slob who removes his shirt also and begins to lift. It's got some humorous dialog. When Slob compliments him on his muscles George  tells Slob that they are 'pecs.' Later when Kotty comes into the dining room they ask her  to judge which of them has the better legs.

Later when Kotty comes into the dining room they ask her  to judge which of them has the better legs.

Another sequence has George and Eddie walking around with dive masks with snorkels, and wearing their flippers shooting a speargun at George's stuffed swordfish,  It makes me think of similar ridiculous sequences. from The Honeymooners, Car 54, Amos and Andy, I love Lucy, Sergeant Bilko, Abbot and Costello, The Three Stooges, etc., etc. this is all interweaved with love story twists between Sam and Kotty, and a serious cold war spy tale.

It starts going Noirsville when Kotty comes out of her room and stumbles upon a conversation between Sam, Slob, and Prof. Claude Dillon. Dillon is trying to convince Sam that what they are doing is treasonous and  it's not too late to turn themselves in. 

Noirsville 

The Dein's achieved a cult classic.  You are beginning to see the obvious Beat Generation influences. There's no actual "beat" speak but it's "crazy man," Slob and Perch sort of act and definitely look the part, Slob is definitely wearing "trash.'  It's a hoot.

There's actually believe it or not, a small handful of scuba / speargun / underwater oriented Noir. The kickoff film of the entire craze may have been 1954's The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1955). 

Besides this film Slightly Scarlet (1956) has a spear gun sequence, The Snorkel (1958) has a scuba mask that figures in the plot and Transitional Noir Night Tide (1961) has an underwater scene. On TV Sea Hunt (1958-1961) was a very popular series with viewers and was a hit throughout its four-season run. It became one of the best remembered and most watched syndicated series in the United States. Even a Western Have Gun Will Travel had an underwater sequence, it was in the collective zeitgeist. 

It's seriously about a 6/10 but a lot of fun to watch and interesting as maybe the Beat Generations first benchmark.

More reviews from IMDb 

Commie Dishwasher Hall of Fame

dougdoepke30 March 2009

The 50's don't come any goofier than this. It's like Senator McCarthy and the Three Stooges stole 50 bucks and decided to commit a movie. But Lee Marvin steals the show in a performance that puts him in the Commie Dishwasher Hall of Fame. When he's not serving up Timex hamburgers, checking out his "pec's", or slobbering over waitress Terry Moore, he's relaying atomic secrets to the Russkies. And here I thought Stalin's boys only spoke in whispers and worked in libraries. Actually this is a Marvin showcase. Watch how effortlessly he moves from laughs to menace and makes you believe both. That weight-lifting scene with Wynn is some kind of screwball classic. It looks improvised to me, like someone said, "Hey, we've only got 3 pages of script! Turn the camera over here." And when Marvin strangles himself in pursuit of "a Really big neck", I heard gym doors slamming all over the city. There must be a story behind this one-set wonder, but it can't be any weirder than what's on screen. I'm just wondering when the outpatient Dein's were due back for further therapy. Anyway, it's an overlooked chance to catch one of our greatest actors in perhaps his most offbeat and unsung role.

Monogram lives!

goblinhairedguy9 March 2004

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.

Very different, very fun....

david-hinman-126 March 2009

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.

Oddballs mingle with atomic spies in bizarre seaside beanery!

Dewey196016 March 2009

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.

Up With Slob!

jonathan-57710 March 2007

Now here's some trash like it oughta be. Keenan Wynn's greaseball diner becomes the crux of a commie spy ring featuring the much-maligned Slob (suddenly I LOVE Lee Marvin). It's up to babyfaced waitress Terry Moore to set things straight. The rapport between Marvin and Wynn when they're not on the let's-get-into-Terry's-pants bandwagon is something to behold - this movie is casual in a delirious way, feels like it was shot on break from a really fun beach party. In their effort to add variety to what is basically a one-set movie, there is SO much going on - there's a goofy workout scene, Wynn gets uncharacteristically introspective and soft-spoken and then suddenly he's running around in flippers and snorkel, and a pacifist veteran shoots a commie with a spear gun. The plot contrivances have to be seen to be believed, especially the triple-macguffin love interest subplot with the State Department lunkhead and Moore walking straight in and out of the spy conference without being noticed. Lots of political speeches, all somehow overwrought and vague at the same time.