I first discovered this film shortly after I became a Keenan Wynn fan; I had heard it was a bit of a strange customer. Indeed, 'Shack Out on 101 (1955)' is an eclectic little thing: part Communist spy drama, part romance, part screwball comedy. Lee Marvin sleazes around as a shady chef passing along government secrets to the Russians. Keenan Wynn slops across the diner floor in swimming flippers and snorkel. And you just know that harpoon gun is going to impale somebody by the end of the film! I was even proud to recognise a young Len Lesser (that is, Uncle Leo from "Seinfeld"), who even then boasted his trademark whiney voice.George (Wynn) owns a diner by the beach, and is in love with pretty blonde Kotty (Terry Moore) – who inadvertently rejects him in the cruelest possible way, explaining "I love you like your mother does." Kotty is going steady with Sam (Frank Lovejoy), a scientist and seashell-collector who is collaborating with diner chef Slob (an extremely greasy Marvin) to pass on government secrets to the Russkies. Nothing in this film sits comfortably: the characters all hate each other, and spend a lot of time yelling about it, and the plot – like most films spy films of the era – is largely incomprehensible. But it has its charms, as curious as they may be.

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.

Lee Marvin's "Slob" character alone makes this worth viewing, although the espionage film is a bit talky and stagy. Still, Marvin is a real hoot, right from the beginning, and provides a few neat surprises near the end. "Slob" is the name of his character, and it fits.Otherwise, the film is an insult-fest with everyone trading barbs at one another. Some of them are pretty funny. Keenan Wynn as "George," the diner owner, is involved in many of the put-downs but Terry Moore has a lot of good lines, too. They reminded me some good film noir dialog.Moore plays the blonde bimbo, "Kotty," a self-proclaimed "hash-slinger" who has good looks and figure and isn't as dumb as she sounds. The guys all call her "tomato" during the story, a popular slang term for babes back in the '50s. All the guys in here are hot for Kotty, and you can't blame them.Several characters in here aren't who they appear to be, beginning with Frank Lovejoy's professor role, so the movie does keep you guessing.This is an odd film, a B-atmosphere with an "A" cast. It includes some strange scenes such as the goofy weight workout at the diner with Marvin and Cobb, and later a dry-land snorkel-thon between Cobb and Whit Bissell. Speaking of the latter, Bissell is a familiar face. He did a ton of TV shows in the 1950s through the 1970s. I saw him on a number of Lone Rangers episodes but he also had multiple appearances of Wagon Train, Peyton Place, The Virginian, Perry Mason, World Of Disney, The Rifleman and many, many more shows.This is one of those strange films where overall, it sucks - let's face it, but many individual scenes make you just laugh out loud, meaning it had enough entertainment to have made my (and others here) time watching it worthwhile......barely.

Memory is relative. One spring, many years ago, a local theater would run a different old movie every week. One of them was Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" but I can't remember the rest, even though I loved them all. What helped to make the movies so great? The atmosphere in the theater, the time of year, walking back to my car through the mist, the sidewalks wet with melting snow, the promise of warm weather to come...I think everyone who calls "Shack Out On 101" a good movie must have their memories clouded the same way. This is a claustrophobic slipknot of a film which denies any logical categorization and somehow amounts to less than the sum of its parts. Lee Marvin stars as Slob, a greasy cook in a greasier diner owned by Keenan Wynn. Non-characters come and go, and the movie's only female Terry Moore seems to be involved with all and none of them. A communist spy may or may not be using this diner as a base of operations, and since the filmmakers don't really care you won't have to either. Half-hearted attempts at comedy are met with equally half-hearted attempts at drama, and predictably neither stick to landing.The movie is filmed in a stark, 50's television "playhouse" style (think early Twilight Zone episodes) and 95% of the story takes place in the single-set diner. One sequence with Lee Marvin laying across the lunch counter and lifting weights with Keenan Wynn demonstrates the subversive potential of the film, but we never get this close to Something again. Aside from an appearance by Len Lesser (Seinfeld's Uncle Leo- HELLO!) there is nothing going on here.Anyone who claims this is a sleeper or lost classic might be remembering an old girlfriend and a good night at the movies... honestly, you're better off at the caddy shack.GRADE: D