Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

moonspinner55 Amusingly odd second-feature starring Terry Moore as a beanery waitress who has high ambitions--studying for her Civil Service exams! Moore and restaurant-owner Keenan Wynn end up tangling with nefarious Lee Marvin, posing as a short-order cook. Hilariously outré mix of moody melodramatics, campy nostalgia, gruff film noir and patriotic flag-waving. Moore is quite appealing spitting out her juicy, hard-bitten purple prose, Wynn also good (if puzzlingly dopey) in a supporting role apparently written for stray laughs. In fact, the entire film is amiably half-witted and almost endearing. Fine cinematography includes an amazing first shot of Terry on the beach. ** from ****

goblinhairedguy When the producers at lowly but lovable Monogram decided to sell an upgraded product, they replaced their banner with that of Allied Artists. This AA release definitely retains that absurd old Monogram spirit. Is it a comedy/satire? A spy spoof? An anti-commie rant? An Ed-Woodian comment on twisted sex mores? A love story? All these things? None of the above? No one knows for sure. The late David Newman said it best in his seminal "Guilty Pleasures" article for Film Comment -- "at no time is it possible to get a handle on this movie." There's a scene where Wynn and Marvin attack a neon swordfish sign that is as nutty as any George Zucco and a guy-in-a-gorilla-suit nonsense from the studio's glory days. Lee Marvin's outrageous method-acting licks seem to come from another planet, and why is everyone so crazy about Terry Moore? Or are the boys really crazy about each other? Fans of Seinfeld be sure to look out for Uncle Leo when he was a young thespian -- and already doing the annoying shtick he later perfected in that series.

bmacv The shack out on Highway 101 just north of San Diego is an oceanside greasy-spoon hung with nautical bric-a-brac like a Red Lobster franchise. It's also the regional headquarters for an subversive spy ring and the claustrophobic setting for one of the oddest fish spawned during the Red Scare paranoia of the post-war years. Keenan Wynn owns the joint, with short-order cook Lee Marvin and waitress Terry Moore as his live-in help, an arrangement as uncomfortable for Moore as it is convenient for Marvin, who can't keep his hands or lips off her. Regulars include Frank Lovejoy (as an unspecified 'professor' romancing Moore), salesman Whit Bissell, an old fisherman making 'deliveries' right off the boat, and a couple of drivers for theAcme Poultry Company who come in for coffee and cherry pie. In this entrepôt big wads of cash get traded for tiny slivers of microfilm. And operatives losing their nerve or asking too many questions get dead.Few of those movies which the studios felt constrained to issue in testimony to their rock-solid Americanism were much good (and audiences shunned them like week-old mackerel). But they shared an utter lack of humor and a suffocating tone of moral urgency. This one is more perplexing. The prevailing tone remains light, at times veering toward farce, to an extent that the very real possibility presents itself that the whole thing is a very sly put-on. One morning when Wynn and Marvin, stripped to their waists, engage in some weight-lifting, Wynn insists that his chest muscles be referred to as 'pecs.' Marvin retorts 'I'm very happy with my pecs,' whereupon they call in Moore to judge which of them has the better legs. In another scene, Moore, lighted through the holes of a hanging colander, looks like she contracted some exotic contagion. But then the movie shifts abruptly into cloak-and-dagger episodes right out of B-movies of the international intrigue genre. Towards the end, the heart sinks as it becomes clear that the movie means us to take it seriously. But serious about what? Never is the word 'Communist' uttered.

escape10 Terry Moore for all her potential in that movie never achieved the critical acclaim in later life that Lee Marvin did. I loved the movie, but don't believe I've ever seen it on TV. Only saw it once in 1955 and it was second bill of a two movie program. I don't even know what the first movie was. In those days it was normal to have two movies (and a cartoon, MovieTone News and a few trailers of movies to come).Frank Lovejoy was great as the commie spy, but I think Slob (Marvin) stole it. Terry Moore as the 'babe' was ok, but Slob was fantastic.