Shack Out on 101 was one of several melodramas and thrillers made in the fifties that exploited the public's fear of the "Red Menace" and Communist infiltration. Other infamous titles in this subgenre include Big Jim McLain (1952) with John Wayne, My Son John (1952), Prisoner of War (1954) starring Ronald Reagan and Jet Pilot (1957).

Terry Moore, who was born Helen Koford, was under contract to 20th-Century-Fox at the time she was cast in Shack Out on 101, an Allied Artists Picture. It was a studio loanout and she was being promoted at the time as a sex symbol in the Marilyn Monroe mode.

Moore is best known for her role in the RKO fantasy-adventure, Mighty Joe Young (1949). She also attracted considerable publicity for her claims that she secretly married Howard Hughes in 1949 and even though she couldn't produce any evidence of it, the Hughes's estate paid her a settlement in 1984.

Moore's leading man in Shack Out, Frank Lovejoy, spent most of his film career playing detectives, reporters, soldiers and various authority figures. I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951) is one of his most quintessential roles.

Keenan Wynn, who had been an MGM contract player for years, quit the studio in 1954 and began freelancing in films and television, with Shack Out on 101 being one of his first movies as an independent actor.

As Slob, Lee Marvin was already a well-established character actor by the time he made Shack Out on 101, thanks to memorably villainous roles in The Big Heat (1953) and Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). He had already begun the switch to leading roles from supporting ones in 1952 with Eight Iron Men but it wasn't until he starred in Cat Ballou (1965) and won the Best Actor Oscar that he began to command top billing.

One of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood, Whit Bissell has more than 250 film and television credits to his name. While his traumatized war veteran Eddie in Shack Out is one of his more colorful performances, he is probably best known for the cult horror films, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (both 1957) and Monster on the Campus (1958).

Len Lesser, who plays Slob's partner in crime in Shack Out, is still working and is well known for his TV appearances as Gavin in Everybody Loves Raymond and as Uncle Leo on Seinfeld.

Jess Barker, who appears as Artie, had just divorced his wife, actress Susan Hayward, when he made Shack Out and was involved in a bitter custody battle with her for their two sons.

Edward Dein, writer and director of Shack Out on 101, toiled mainly in the B-movie industry with a few detours into television (The Wild, Wild West, Hawaiian Eye). Among the genre films he worked on are Boston Blackie's Rendezvous [1945], Curse of the Undead [1959], The Cat Creeps [1946] and The Leech Woman [1960]. He also contributed additional dialogue on Val Lewton's The Leopard Man [1943].

Among the entire behind-the-camera crew of Shack Out on 101, cinematographer Floyd Crosby is easily the most distinguished and prolific, having received an Oscar® nomination for his very first film, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931). He has worked on everything from Robert Flaherty's landmark documentary The Land (1942) to High Noon (1952) to countless cult favorites in later years when he found steady work at American International Pictures (House of Usher [1960], X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes [1963]).

by Jeff Stafford

SOURCES:
Lee Marvin: His Films and Career by Robert J. Lentz (McFarland & Co.)
Marvin: The Story of Lee Marvin by Donald Zec (St. Martin's Press)
Lee: A Romance by Pamela Marvin (Faber and Faber)
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