Shack Out on 101

“Everything you are is right on your face.” Well, not so fast. Even the delivery men aren’t who they claim to be in Edward Dein’s Shack Out on 101, an underseen Cold War noir in which few characters should be taken at face value. In an early, fun role, Lee Marvin plays Slob, a volatile short-order cook who may or may not have connections with foreign spies, while Frank Lovejoy plays Professor Sam, an average guy who’s dating the diner’s waitress Kotty (Terry Moore) and who may or may not have connections to law enforcement. The setting is a rural greasy spoon whose closest neighbor is a nuclear research facility. Lovejoy may be a bit flat here, but the rest of the cast, which also includes Keenan Wynn and Whit Bissell, is excellent in part because they’re given scenes that balance the story’s coldness and quirkiness, like a scene when half-naked men are inspecting and admiring each other’s muscles during an evening weightlifting session or when a character attempts to alleviate PTSD by dressing in a SCUBA suit and pretending to harpoon a mounted fish. From the opening scene, when he laughs after assaulting a female sunbather on the beach, the magnetic Lee Marvin, who somehow combines charming and obnoxious, steals the show; a scene in which he walks up to Kotty from behind as she desperately makes a phone call is the zenith of tension.