Pushover (1954)

Pushover is only 88 minutes long but it isn't very tightly paced. On the other hand, there are some nice touches. The claustrophobic feel of the picture (no doubt, partly due to the low budget), and the way the protagonist, a police detective (well played by Fred MacMurray) becomes more and more involved in the life of a woman he's observing on a stakeout, are highlights. Kim Novak plays the woman; she's inexperienced but has her usual intensity and sincerity, and of course, she's gorgeous. A small film that has a too-deliberate pace, but some intelligence and that sense of inexorable fate that the best noirs have.

I enjoyed the good performances from all the cast, though no surprises here from Fred MacMurray, in this late noir however the actors were all severely let down by the very flat direction of Richard Quine in what could have been a taut thriller instead of what we have here, than is a Double Indemnity wannabe. The film's atmosphere though is greatly helped with a redeeming feature - the weather and in particular the rain, the wet streets.I wonder if Hitchcock had seen this movie before casting Kim Novak in Vertigo? She moves through the movie like a somnambulist. It's worth pointing out the sweater she wears in early scenes which looks forward to the sweater girls that followed.

In Pushover Fred MacMurray dusts off his acclaimed portrayal of Walter Neff the luckless insurance agent from Double Indemnity and gives him a badge as an easily corruptible cop. The temptation in his path is another dame, in this case Kim Novak being 'introduced' in this film as Columbia's answer to Marilyn Monroe.MacMurray's a cop who is assigned to get close to gangster Paul Richards's moll Novak. Richards and his mob have pulled off a bank heist and if they had any sense, they'd be out of the country and fleeing. But police captain E.G. Marshall reasons that Richards ain't going nowhere without Novak. Of course what he doesn't figure on MacMurray's libido as well as Richards. Novak's one cool ice princess in this one, she's willing to spend the loot with one crook as another and one with a badge sounds pretty good to her. There's a side romance going as well with Novak's neighbor, nurse Dorothy Malone and fellow officer Philip Carey. Malone gets innocently caught up in the intrigue. Carey while doing surveillance on Novak's apartment gets to peeping in on Malone next door. His little Rear Window act pays off in the end.Pushover is a fine noir drama and highly recommended for those who like myself know full well that Fred MacMurray is capable of a lot more than Disney films and My Three Sons which I think most know him for today. Novak makes a stunning debut as the ultimately luckless moll and the rest of the cast backs them up with a splendid ensemble effort.

Really taut little thriller, with enough cat and mouse to satisfy fans of the old Tom and Jerry. Fred Mac Murray's cop starts out as a professional but ends up in a vortex of crime thanks to the compelling allure of the shapely Miss Novak. Good thing she's called on to do little more than stand around looking sexy, because her bad, breathy imitation of Marilyn M. in the opening garage scene had me reaching for the off button. I gather Columbia (read Harry Cohn) had high hopes of launching Novak's career with this role. Too bad she had to compete with a hundred other bosomy blonde Marilyn's for the honor. I like the seduction scene with its subtly unzipped zipper, about as far as the screen could go at that time. The plot wrinkles get pretty complicated at times, but the pace keeps moving nicely along. Then too, the final line presents a poignant slice of ironic insight.There's the inevitable comparison here with the thematically similar Double Idemnity, but then Novak is no Stanwyck and MacMurray is a ten dissipated years older. Still, this little suspenser needs no help from the past and can stand firmly on its own.