SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Jem Odewahn What a crazy and terrible film this is! It's watchable because it's so random. When Lee Marvin's character's name is Slob, you know a film is worth watching. And when Slob just happens to be the biggest scientific threat to America EVER (this is one of the Cold-War fright films) masquerading as a greasy spoon cafe cook, you just can't stop watching the film! Best line-- "Go and clean that greasy griddle, Slob", said to Marvin, who looks like he's about to pour piping hot coffee on anyone's face in every scene. The film is impossible to follow, with customers at the grimy 101 shack striking up random conversations with each other about nothing in particular. Terry Moore is the waitress who every man in the film wants to jump. The film has an AWESOME opening scene with a scantily clad Moore lying on the beach, and Marvin in the background with his ear to a shell. And he tries to jump her there and then!! There's also some inane stuff about weight-lifting and trying on flippers next to the counter. Hard not to recommend, even if it is awful.

goblinhairedguy 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.

sol The movie starts out with a real cool jazzy score like something you would expect from a movie like "The Gene Krupa Story. The opening scene has Kotty, Terry Moore, lying on the beach getting sun and surf until Slob, Lee Marvin, who notices her from a distance starts getting fresh with her and ends up getting a couple of seashells thrown at him. You don't really know what the movie is about until the professor, Frank Lovejoy,comes on the scene and from him talking to Knotty you realize that he's working at a top secret government facility just up the road from the diner where Knotty and Slob work.The movie goes along it's somewhat comical pace with Slob acting like Ed Norton in "the Honeymooners" messing up everything that he does as a cook at the diner until we see the person delivering fish and Slob start whispering with him out of earshot of the diners owner George, Keenan Wynn, and then the fisherman slips Slob something . Later Slob all by himself in his room begins to take on a new look, not kooky and funny but dead serious, as we see him take what the fisherman gave him and put it into a viewfinder. Slob sees some kind of mathematical formula and it's then when you realize that this is a story about espionage.Not really as corny and obnoxious as most movies about the Communist threat against America was back then in the 1950's with Lee Marvin stealing every scene that he's in as the greasy cook turned top Soviet spy and being very convincing at it. Frank Lovejoy in a role very similar to his previous Communist fighting movie "I was a Communist for the FBI" is also very convincing as a man torn between the truth and a lie by trying to infiltrate the Communist spy ring led by Slob. Where at the same time not being able to tell his girlfriend, Knotty, who thinks that he's a spy for the Soviets, without blowing his cover. Terry Moore was very good as a naive girl who learned a lot during the movie about who to trust and who not to. Like in the espionage business all that you see is not what you think. All and all a much better movie about espionage during the cold war then most movies about the subject were back them with a great performance by Lee Marvin, one of his best. "Shack out at 101" sadly showed that in those troubled times the paranoia that griped the USA was so extreme that you couldn't trust anyone when it came to being a Communist spy. Even the cook serving you coffee and apple pie at your neighborhood diner.

bmacv 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.