With a title like "Shack Out on 101"(1955), you've gotta click "play", especially when the star is Lee Marvin. The rest of the cast is alone worth the watch : Terry Moore, Frank Lovejoy, Keenan Wynn, Whit Bissell. Let me ask you this - have you ever seen Whit Bissell in a movie that was bad? I'll answer for you, no you haven't. And you've seen him in at least a hundred films. So right there, notwithstanding all the other actors, you know you're guaranteed a decent picture. And then, for good measure (depending on if you can stand him), you also get Len Lesser, aka "Uncle Leo" from "Seinfeld". Me? I can't handle Uncle Leo. But Lesser is more this time around.
What kind of a show are we talking about here? Hmm, I'm not really sure what to call it. Is it a Noir, is it a crime story, perhaps a spy flick or a black comedy? I'm at a loss, you'll have to categorize it yourself. It feels like a play, the way the actors read their lines, and it takes place almost all in one setting, a seaside cafe off the highway near San Diego. Lee Marvin, young and thin, plays "Slob", the joint's cook. As the movie opens, he takes advantage of "Kotty" (Terry Moore), the waitress. She's on the beach sunbathing. Slob sneaks over and gives her "mouth-to-mouth". When she pulls him off and slaps him, he acts hurt. "Aww, c'mon Kotty. I thought you were passed out". He didn't really think it, but that's the kind of guy Slob is, an animal who takes what he can get.
He seems jovial, however. When cafe owner "George" (Keenan Wynn) tells him "I'll pound you and then I'll fire you if you ever bother Kotty again", Slob shrugs it off with a grin and a sly insult. "You'll never find another cook as bad as me to make your lousy food". The next thing you know, they're lifting weights together in the dining room after closing, comparing pecs with their shirts off. So are they friends, or not? Maybe so, as long as Kotty isn't in the way. Slob calls her "the tomato". "You'd love to get your hands on her too, George, admit it". But George is more noble than Slob. His feelings toward Kottie are gallant.
As for Kottie herself, she's in love with one of the regular customers, "Professor Sam Bastion" (Frank Lovejoy) a highbrow physicist from a top secret Army base down the road. "Why can't you tell me what you do there"?, she's always asking. "Because it's classified, like the Manhattan Project", he answers. "Eddie" (Whit Bissell) is another regular. He and Professor Sam were in the D-Day invasion together. Eddie has PTSD from the experience. Professor Sam, though not a shrink, gives him advice that cheers him up. "Just keep telling me what to do, Sam, and I'll be all right. I always feel better after talking to you".
One night a guy named "Perch" (Len Lesser) comes into the cafe after closing. Slob is the only one there. Perch hands him a small object that looks like a film container. Slob stashes it in a chest he hides below his bunk (he lives in the back room). I won't reveal what it is because it's central to the end of the movie. Meanwhile, there are two other regulars, "Artie" and "Pepe" (Jess Barker and Donald Murphy). They're the delivery drivers for the company that supplies George with fresh fish, but there's something fishy about them. They always hang around till closing. "Don't you guys have to finish your run"?, Slob wonders.
Finally, there's "Professor Claude Dillon" (Frank DeKova), Prof. Bastion's cohort. He only comes in once, then he turns up dead. His body is found washed up on the beach. Because he worked at the top secret base, his death is front page news. Slob says "it's probably suicide. Think of the pressure those guys are under". But what he doesn't know is that Kotty overheard him talking to Professor Dillon and Perch. Now, when the police interview everyone at the cafe, Slob says he never met Dillon. Kotty then does something you wouldn't expect, especially from a helpless young woman. She confronts Slob with his secret conversation. I'm not going to tell you what happens after that, but believe it or not, this isn't a full-on spy flick. As much time is spent on verbal hijinks between Slob, George and the others, with a lot of exaggerated clowning around, and again as much is spent on Slob's pursuit of Kotty, which earns him the enmity of Professor Sam as well as George, so you know there's gonna be a showdown. The spy plot is established early on but doesn't kick in until the last half of the movie.
Like me, you'll no doubt be wondering "what kind of movie is this"? At first it has the feel of a farce, or a very black comedy, and as noted it's staged like a play with the singular set (the cafe), and characters entering and leaving. But because the actors are so good - especially Lee Marvin, who was adept at light comedy - you'll find yourself glued to the screen, even if the style is unclear. Later on, there'll be no doubt it's a serious film, but before that it's a weird one. Slob and Kotty are the main characters. Terry Moore was good in "innocent-but-tough" roles like this one. Every time I see her I forget she was married to Howard Hughes. Like a lot of folks in Hughes' orbit, she's a Mormon (she's still alive at 91). They were only together from 1949 to 1956, but Moore claimed they never divorced. Hughes said the marriage was never legal in the first place. He died in 1976. Though I did think the verbal sparring went on just a smidge too long, and that the movie could use a trim of 3-5 minutes, "Shack Out on 101" still gets Two Big Thumbs Up just because it's so different. And that cast. Man what a great ensemble. It's an oddball of a Noir, it's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night's film was "Hollywood Story"(1951), another movie-within-a-movie, or maybe a movie about the movies. Either way, it was almost certainly based on the notorious 1922 murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor, which was never solved. The story consumed Hollywood at the time. Suspects included famous stars like Mabel Normand and Mary Miles Minter. As re-imagined by our old pal William Castle, it's a stylish mystery with a sense of fun. Not too much fun, mind you. Castle was an admirer of Hitchcock, so the main element is suspense. Whodunit is what counts here, and it's more complex than a Ten Little indians, but what Castle really wants is to deliver a paean to the old days, when the studios were omnipotent, and Silents were just giving way to Talkies.
Hollywood plays itself. The main location is Chaplin Studios on La Brea, (where we met Ringo Starr when it was A&M Records). Cameos are made by Silent stars Francis X. Bushman (whose grandson was Pat Conway of "Tombstone Territory" fame), Betty Blythe, William Farnum and Helen Gibson (a suspect in the original murder case). 40s/50s star Joel McCrea also makes an appearance.
Jim Backus narrates as "Mitch Davis", agent for Broadway producer "Larry O' Brien" (Richard Conte). As the movie opens, he meets O'Brien at the Burbank airport. O'Brien wants to break into movies. Davis takes him to a studio (the aforementioned Chaplin), where the security guard gives them a guided tour. When he regales the men with the story of the murder (the fictional director's name is Franklin Ferrara), O'Brien decides to make a movie about it. Everyone tries to talk him out of it, including his agent Davis and his business partner "Sam Collyer" (Fred Clark). "That story's old news", Collyer says. "No one cares anymore and besides, it was never solved, which means you don't have an ending". All that does is make O'Brien more determined. "Well that's even better", he declares. "We'll solve the murder ourselves! Not only will that give us our ending, but think of the publicity"! To him it's an ingenious proposition.
But first he'll need a script. To that end, he seeks out "Vincent St. Clair" (Henry Hull), a screenwriter from the Silent days who wrote the original movie. When Ferrara was killed, his career went down the tubes, as did everyone's who worked on the picture. O'Brien finds St. Clair in a shack on the beach (not the Shack Out on 101). He's all washed up, living inside a bottle, but O'Brien wants him and no one else. "You were there; you can recreate what happened". St. Clair gets his act together and takes the job. Soon production is underway. Then a guest shows up unexpectedly : "Sally Rousseau" (Julie Adams), the daughter of Silent actress Amanda Rousseau. Amanda was seen with Ferrara the night he was murdered. Sally doesn't want her late mother dragged into this. This puts her at odds with Larry O'Brien. With his money invested and production underway, there's no chance he's gonna call off the movie. Slowly, he brings her around to seeing things his way. "If anything, it'll help clear your mother's name". Sally comes to trust him, and later they fall in love, but there's another reason she doesn't want her mother mentioned. Of course I can't reveal what it is.
As O'Brien begins his own investigation, working from Vincent St. Clair's script, an aging Silent film star becomes the prime suspect. He's playing a butler in the new movie. Sally Rousseau is nervous about him. O'Brien wonders why. His business partner Sam Collyer has a grudge against the old actor. Is he at the bottom of the secret everyone's been keeping for 20 years? While the plot is not high-tension, it's convoluted enough to hold your interest. Moreover, because it's directed by William Castle, the movie looks fantastic. You might recall when we binge watched a set of his horror movies a couple years back, we remarked on his talent for composition or mise-en-scene. He's very good at arranging the frame, and his black and white photography always has a velvety texture. Like "Shack/101", "Hollywood Story" is powered by a great cast. Besides Richard Conte (one of our go-to guys of 2021), you get the tall and rather toothy Henry Hull, best known as the "Werewolf of London". You also get the beautiful Julie Adams, she of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" fame. You get Richard Egan as a smirking cop, and a little bit of Jim Backus - pre-Howell - for good measure. Because of all this - the stars and the style - "Hollywood Story" gets Two Big Thumbs Up. While we don't have a standout masterpiece this time around, and our first movie is downright odd, I'd recommend not missing either one of them. You could even watch 'em both the same night; they kind of go together in a strange way. The picture on "Hollywood Story" is razor sharp. ////
That's all for tonight. Baby it's cold outside! I hope you're enjoying the Christmas Season and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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