Shack Out On 101

Part film noir, part espionage adventure, part romantic comedy and all action Shack out on 101 (1955) is one of the more bizarre films you likely never saw.  On a seldom traveled stretch of California Highway 101 brutish hash slinger “Slob” (Lee Marvin) serves up marginally digestible cuisine at a greasy spoon diner owned by George (Keenan Wynn). Tasty waitress “Kotty” (Terry Moore) has the eye of every man who comes through but her heart belongs to Professor Sam Bastion (Frank Lovejoy) who works at the mysterious nuclear research facility up the road.

 When Kotty overhears Slob and the Professor exchanging deep dark secrets-and selling out America in the process-her world is turned upside down.  What follows is a semi-coherent mishmash of style, a plot that meanders more wildly than does that fabled stretch of road, and characters intent on doing their absolute best to get themselves killed.  After all, when one confronts a known killer (who just happens to be holding an eight inch knife) one should, of course, tell them you’re going to call the authorities, right?)  In one unintentionally hysterical scene a pair of G Men, seen earlier in the movie masquerading as poultry deliverymen, confront Eddie (Whitt Bissell) whom they know to be in cahoots with Slob ( AKA Mr. George, the mastermind behind this treacherous plot) and open fire on him.  Rather than duck behind the large rocks that are less than a few feet away they instead march directly toward him.  When he returns fire the feds now has two fewer G Men on the payroll.  

Eventually Mr. George gets his comeuppance; it’s revealed that the Professor has actually been working for the good guys all along (a double agent of sorts) and all is again right on Highway 101.  Shack out on 101 is a movie that demands little of the viewer other than a suspension of belief and rationality. At a mere 80 minutes it moves along brisker than the Santa Ana winds and provides enough entertainment to make it worth your time. 

Fun facts!  The original name of Shack Up on 101 was changed when star Terry Moore objected to the suggestive nature of the title.  Upon the 1976 death of billionaire aviator Howard Hughes, Moore, who in 1952 had been nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role opposite Burt Lancaster in Come Back, Little Sheba, asserted that she and Hughes had secretly married in 1949 and never divorced. Despite the fact that Moore married two other men while she was still "married" to Hughes, in 1984 his estate paid her an undisclosed settlement.  Moore, herself a skilled pilot, later coached Leonardo DiCaprio for his role as the fabled recluse in the 2004 movie Aviator. 

James