Pushover (1954) User Reviews

Money isn't dirty. Just people.

[hitchcockthelegend · 8/10 · 1 July 2012]

Pushover is directed by Richard Quine and adapted to screenplay by Roy Huggins from stories written by Bill S. Ballinger and Thomas Walsh. It stars Fred MacMurray, Phillip Carey, Kim Novak, Dorothy Malone and E. G. Marshall. Music is scored by Arthur Morton and cinematography by Lester White.

Straight cop Paul Sheridan (MacMurray) is on the trail of the loot stolen in a bank robbery where a guard was shot and killed. He is tasked with getting to know Lona McLane (Novak), the girlfriend of the chief suspect in the robbery. But once contact is made, and surveillance set up over the road from her apartment complex, Sheridan begins to fall in love and lust with the sultry femme.

Comparisons with the superior Double Indemnity are fair enough, but really there is enough here, and considerable differences too, for the film to rightfully be judged on its own merits. Also of note to point out is that one or two critics have questioned if Pushover is actually a film noir piece? Bizarre! Given that character motives, destinies and thematics of plot are quintessential film noir.

A good but weary guy is emotionally vulnerable and finds his life spun into a vortex of lust, greed and murder. Yet the femme fatale responsible, is not a rank and file manipulator, she too has big issues to deal with, a trophy girlfriend to a crook, she coarsely resents this fact. The cop who never smiles and the girl who has forgotten how too, is there hope there? Do they need the money that has weaved them together? What does that old devil called fate have in store for them? Classic noir traits do pulse from the plot. True, the trajectory the pic takes had been a well trodden formula in noir by the mid fifties, where noir as a strong force was on the wane, but this holds up very well.

It isn't just a piece solely relying on two characters either, there's the concurrent tale of Sheridan's voyeuristic partner Rik McAllister (Carey), who has caught the eye of Lona's next door neighbour, Ann Stewart (Malone). Both these characters operate in a different world to the other two, yet the question remains if a relationship can be born out from such shady beginnings? The presentation of relationships here is delightfully perverse. The visual style wrung out by Quine (Drive a Crooked Road) and White (5 Against the House) is most assuredly noir, with 99% of the film set at night, with prominent shadows, damp streets lit by bulbous lamps and roof top scenes decorated sparsely by jutting aerials. The L.A. backdrop a moody observer to the unwrapping of damaged human goods.

Cast are very good, all working well for their reliable director. Novak sizzles in what was her first credited starring role, she perfectly embodies a gal that someone like Paul Sheridan could lose his soul for. MacMurray is suitably weary, his lived in face telling of a life lacking in genuine moments of pleasure. Carey, square jawed, tall and handsome, he is the perfect foil to MacMurray's woe. Malone offers the potential ray of light trying to break out in this dark part of America, while Marshall as tough Lieutenant Eckstrom and Allen Nourse as a copper riding the noir train to sadness, score favourably too.

It opens with a daylight bank robbery and closes in true noir style on a cold and wet night time street. Pushover, deserving to be viewed as one of the more interesting 1950s film noirs. 8/10

Watch it, don't compare it.

[WarnersBrother · 7/10 · 24 November 2010]

Don't read the reviews comparing it to other films before watching it on it's own merits, which are many. A damn fine Noir which isn't beholding to any other.

IMDb requires ten lines of text, but instead of impressing you with my opinions, I'll do this:

Kim Novak is stunning physically and memorable performance wise.

Fred Mc Murray is excellent on the northern-edge of his leading man days.

The first 3 minutes are perfect.

Really, the first 3 minutes make it worth watching.

LA at night, the land that built noir.

See it. Trust me.

Derivative, sure, but a surprisingly taut, claustrophobic entry from waning noir cycle

[bmacv · 8/10 · 4 January 2005]

There were still a few surprises to come in the noir cycle (Kiss Me Deadly, The Big Combo, The Killing, Touch of Evil), but by 1954 just about every theme and plot point had already been used and recycled. Still, Pushover has its own distinctive cachet. Visually, it's a gloomy, almost Stygian piece of film, harking back to the lowest-budget releases of 1946 and 1947 like Fall Guy or The Guilty. And there's a mood of furtiveness – of voyeurism – that remains arresting.

For openers, we witness a bank robbery where deaths result, but the mastermind (Paul Richards) eludes the law. Next, we watch Kim Novak (in her movie debut) exiting a cinema where It Should Happen to You and The Nebraskan constitute the double bill. Deftly, she circumvents an opened ladder, but still her car won't start. Luckily Fred MacMurray happens by to proffer his assistance. Soon they're enjoying cocktails in a cozy bar and later at his place ("Suprise me," she tells him) while waiting for her auto to be delivered from an all-night shop.

Neither the pick-up nor the malfunction underneath the hood was, however, quite a matter of chance. MacMurray's a police detective, and Novak is Richards' moll. No fool she, Novak picks up on the truth but trumps his duplicity with her own: They can kill Richards and vamoose with the loot from the bank job. MacMurray, reprising the not-so-bright-as-he-thinks ladies' man from Double Indemnity, falls for the bait....

Pushover revels in its claustrophobia. Almost all the action takes place, at night, in the U-shaped apartment building where Novak lives. Across the way, the law stakes out a dark and abandoned suite where they spy on Novak through binoculars and monitor her phone calls. Another unwilling beneficiary of their surveillance, certainly without benefit of legal documents allowing it, is nurse Dorothy Malone, who's Novak's next-door neighbor and whose quest for more ice during a late-night party becomes a crucial juncture in the plot.

The well-laid plans that MacMurray and Novak follow meet, inevitably, some snags, as a result of which one of his colleagues, an honest if alcoholic cop (Allen Nourse) looking forward to his pension check, gets not-so-accidentally killed. But MacMurray, his options folding one by one, slogs along, desperately trying to play both sides of his duplicitous game....

Derivative it may be (corrupt cop, duplicitous blonde), but Pushover exemplifies the swift, hard-edged and unsentimental turn that film noir had taken during the Eisenhower Administration; it's still one of the better titles from the dwindling days of the cycle.

Noteworthy for the film debut of Kim Novak...tight suspense...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 17 January 2007]

PUSHOVER is an underrated, little known crime melodrama from the mid-'50s that introduced the blonde beauty of KIM NOVAK to audiences and gave FRED MacMURRAY another chance to play an authority figure seduced by the charms of a femme fatale. When the story begins, it turns out his accidental meeting with Novak was really a set-up, he being a cop assigned to keep track of her whereabouts after a bank hold-up results in the death of a police officer.

He suspects that her mobster boyfriend pulled the job and at first resists when she tries to convince him they can use the bank money for themselves. But eventually, he weakens and before you know it he's informing her that her phone is wire tapped and the two of them are just one step ahead of the police for the rest of the film.

PHIL CAREY, as a fellow officer and E.G. MARSHALL as the lead detective are excellent in supporting roles, as is DOROTHY MALONE in a pivotal role as a girl occupying the apartment next to Novak in a U-shaped building that enables MacMurray and Carey to keep an eye on both gals through binoculars (shades of REAR WINDOW).

Conveniently, no one ever draws the blinds in these sort of thrillers and spying is made so easy for the sake of plotting, as the 24-hour surveillance occupies much of the story. The noir elements are present throughout, the dark rainy streets, the shadowy photography during car chases, the clipped delivery of lines, the murder scheme gone awry, the femme fatale angelic on the outside, bad within.

But somehow it never becomes a major film noir, relegated to its place in obscurity over the years and not really a title that pops up when one speaks of film noir--but it does qualify as noir, on a minor scale, and it's given some taut direction and tight suspense by director Richard Quine.

Kim is as easy as ever on the eyes although a bit robotic in her acting technique and never quite convincing as a mobster's moll. MacMurray has a less interesting, more one-dimensional role as a cop corrupted by beauty.

All in all, definitely worth watching.

A poor man's version of Double Indemnity

[flordebob · 23 September 2003]

It's Fred MacMurray again, as a virtuous agent for the causes of good. Instead of playing an insurance salesman with an eye for the fast buck, here he's playing a cop assigned to shadow Novak, the mobster's moll. Kim Novak is as beautiful as she's ever appeared on the screen. The lighting in her early scenes is as dramatic and sensual as it can be. Who wouldn't fall in love with her? Comparisons with Double Indemnity just can't be ignored. She is the vamp that Barbara Stanwyck could never be. She's softer and more feminine in that 50's style, and less hard-edged than Stanwyck, which makes her much more dangerous. Novak's generally wooden acting style & "flat affect" gives way to a softer sex-kitten demeanor. MacMurray's character is a more active participant in the events that unfold than in "DD", where he seemed to get his courage and strength from Stanwyck's cold & calculating personna. Billy Wilder could have made this a masterpiece, but even without the guidance of the master's hand, this one is definitely well-worth watching.

Tight, one locale film noir

[funkyfry · 7/10 · 3 October 2002]

Tight, driven little peice of "film noir" with MacMurray as a good cop driven to distraction (and murder) by the gangester moll (Novak, in her film debut, somewhat more effective than usual) he's been assigned to spy on. Malone fills in for a charming bit as the girl-next-door who MacMurray's sidekick falls for. Typically, a mistake is made by the criminals, and they will pay for it, but they're having fun along the way. Some confusion in the script seems to have resulted in Novak's character turning somewhat sympathetic towards the ending, sounding a disingenuous note. Still, good solid bit of film.

Kim Novak & Dorothy Malone were Great

[whpratt1 · 7/10 · 23 April 2008]

Enjoyed this great classic film from 1954 starring Fred MacMurray, (Paul Sheridan) who is a detective and gets involved with Lona McLane,(Kim Novak) who is connected with a bank robber and Lona cons Paul to kill her boyfriend so they can take the money for themselves. The only problem is that Paul Sheridan is assigned to watch Lona on a stake out with other detectives and have her apartment watched and her telephone wires tapped. There are many problems that face Paul and Lona and one of Paul's detective friends gets involved with a girl named Ann Stewart, (Dorothy Malone) who lives in the same apartment house as Lona and lives down the hall. This story becomes quite exciting as a crooked cop tries to cover his tracks and makes mistakes after mistakes. Don't miss this Classic it is great with outstanding acting and a great cast of actors. Enjoy.

An Easily Corruptible Cop

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 22 November 2008]

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.

Double Indemnity part 2?

[lizardkxng · 7/10 · 21 March 2007]

I didn't expect this movie to be this good knowing nothing about it. Kim Novak is not the bitch that Barbara Stanwyck is, but the most beautiful actress on the movie screen and shy way about her that was truly sensuous. No matter who the leading man in her movies was, you just felt the helplessness of them being totally enthralled with this soft, sensuous, unbelievable sex goddess, for lack of another original description.

This is only the second movie I seen Fred MacMurray in (no my three sons here) besides Double Indemnity and his performance is very good here also,... just as Double Indemnity... I found myself hoping he would get away with it!

In some ways a perfect crime/noir film, though vaguely unoriginal, too.

[secondtake · 8/10 · 18 May 2011]

Pushover (1954)

An early widescreen black and white film noir gem. It comes late in the noir cycle but it crackles with precision and sharp acting. Though the details of the plot differ, it is an obvious echo of "Double Indemnity" with the leading man, played again by Fred MacMurray, sucked into a risky plot for big money and alluring love. And of course things don't go as planned.

MacMurray is an interesting choice in both films, because he really is more of an everyman than a noir type. Noir types are variable, I know, but you can range from Mitchum to Bogart to Dana Andrews to a whole bunch of minor actors who all have a kind of coolness or hardness to them, and you never see a regular fellow like MacMurray (the closest might be Mickey Rooney, of all people, in a neglected oddball noir, the 1950 "Quicksand"). MacMurray would later find his true calling as the dad in "My Three Sons" but when you see him in these early film roles there is something wrong and some perfect about his presence.

I don't mean to neglect the femme fatale here, a young Kim Novak, in her first full role. She's terrific, really, a bit cool (which was her style) but more convincing, to me, than her more famous appearance across from Sinatra in "Man with the Golden Arm." Maybe it's partly how well matched she is as an actress to MacMurray, though if there is a flaw to the film , it might be the unlikeness of these two falling in love, even with $210,000 to persuade them. But love is love and who's to say? The two of them, often playing in separate scenes (talking on the phone, or MacMurray watching her through binoculars), make this a full blooded drama as well as a crime noir.

The pace and editing of this movie, and the script and story, are perfect. It's easily the kind of film you could study for its structure, and for the writing, which isn't filled with noir doozies but with believable fast lines between two people looking to get through a growing debacle. It's a conventional structure, but its precision is comparable (for its precision) to "The Killing," that famous Stanley Kubrick film from 1956. And if it isn't as inventive, and if it lacks that amazing ending, "Pushover" is resilient because it is so reasonable. It could very well happen, and these relatively ordinary types (Novak being admired for her looks, but there are lots of lookers like her out there, especially gangster's girls) make it all the more compelling.

The filming is great, Lester White not known in particular in the cinematography world but shot a whole slew of decent and unamazing westerns (as well as the Ida Lupino "Women's Prison" which has it moments). Little known director Richard Quine made lots of lightweight and comic fare (he worked a bit with both Blake Edwards and Mickey Rooney, then later with Jack Lemmon) and this might be his most serious 1950s film, in tone. It's certainly the kind that you can't look away for a second because it clips along without a lull for an hour and a half.

A well scripted noir wanna be mishandled

[hadaska-53290 · 6/10 · 27 February 2022]

Greed, corruption, deception, femme fatale dame, key elements of a noir thriller that here in totality are deficiently dramatized. Likely the fault of director Richard Quine who failed to infuse the storyline and actors with the necessary passionate momentum. We get Fred MacMurray presenting his usual average American guy this time cast as an undercover police detective. And in this context still not able to fully cancel out his innate milk toast image. Takes what's called suspension of disbelief to buy into the premise this dedicated cop can so easily become a corrupt cop even when the lure is a seductive gangster moll. Even one dished up so tantalizingly by Kim Novak. Kim Novak in her intro featured movie role is 21 years old and carries herself like a woman of the world who at a young age has been around. Has already seen, heard and done plenty. It fits her character well as she manages to flavor her resilient worldliness with the right amount of poignant vulnerability. Dorothy Malone appears here still in her brown haired days before she renovated into a platinum blonde. An image transition that jump started her career and brought her to public attention. All in all, the movie is no great shakes but well worth watching. Has significant entertainment value. Not strictly a B movie but more like a B+.

Kim Novak's first film, an excellent thriller

[robert-temple-1 · 8/10 · 15 July 2008]

This film is especially notable as being the first film of Kim Novak. She is already a sizzler, from her very first scenes. The camera loves her, and her career from this point on was inevitable. It was only the next year that she set all the men of America afire by her sensuous role in Bill Inge's 'Picnic', opposite William Holden. High cheekbones never hurt a gal in films, and as Kim Novak must be of Czech descent judging from her name, we have here the classic Slav look. It wasn't long before 'Vertigo' and by then, Kim Novak had become an icon, which she remains to this day. Fred MacMurray is the leading man in this film, excellent as usual but really too old for someone like Novak to fall in love with at first sight as called for in this story. Oh well, that's casting for you. Dorothy Malone appears in this as a sweetie. The film is gripping, at the tail end of noir, a mixture of crime, cops, and mystery. The post-War mood of sombre brooding is ending, things are lightening up a bit, and crime and corruption are no longer seen as an intrusive Dark Hand of Doom but as eruptions into daily life of natural human impulses of greed, lust, and evil, which are as spontaneous as barbecues are in summer in Texas. These things 'just happen', and an end of the world scenario of being engulfed by wickedness is now seen more prosaically as 'oh no, not another crook and another crime!' As crime keeps on happening, you kind of get used to it, and films like this take on an air of 'here we go again'. So it is no longer brooding atmosphere but gripping intrigue which makes the movies work by the mid-1950s.

"Money isn't dirty. Just people."

[brogmiller · 7/10 · 18 February 2022]

Very few would regard this as a classic Noir but thanks to Richard Quine's taut direction it does what it has to do in the space of a little less than ninety minutes and pretty well fulfils the promise of its excellent opening scene.

The voyeuristic element anticipates 'Rear Window' whilst comparisons, albeit rather tiresome, have inevitably been made with 'Double Indemnity', solely because Fred MacMurray again plays a sap. This minor opus cannot of course hold a candle to Wilder's masterpiece and here the femme fatale of Kim Novak is an unwitting one whose blonde hair is her own.

Mr. MacMurray has been unfairly disparaged by some IMDb members who evidently cannot recognise a good actor when they see one. Although appearing to be the acme of affability he was at his most effective when playing against type, which is certainly the case here.

There is excellent support from stalwart E. G. Marshall, mucho macho Philip Carey and appealing Dorothy Malone. This marks the first speaking role for Kim Novak and already she has that elusive air which the camera adores. If you are as much of a pushover for Miss Novak as I, then this film is a must.

MacMurray + Novak = No Chemistry

[mollytinkers · 5/10 · 4 August 2021]

I'm glad so many reviewers really liked this movie, but I feel like I must have watched a different one than they did. This film is bland. While there's nothing truly wrong with recycling plots, circumstances, or characters, it darn well better be taken up a notch in order to outshine its predecessors.

I find MacMurray miscast. Although Ms. Novak contributed many exciting performances throughout her career, she's lackluster in this one. I blame the director, Richard Quine. It's as though he didn't quite know how to elicit from her the kind of performance she was truly capable of.

The story is okay. The script adequate, but whatever noir-style elements it has are overlooked or seriously downplayed. The remaining cast aren't standouts, although it's always a delight to watch Ms. Malone.

It's by no means a total waste of time, but I wouldn't go out of my way to search it out.

Suspenseful stakeout caper

[jimjo1216 · 31 August 2013]

This was a pleasant surprise. I'd never heard of this film and gave it a try. It's the classic noir set-up of a plan that goes awry due to unforeseen variables. There are flashes of DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), as Fred MacMurray and a beautiful woman (this time Kim Novak, in her breakout role) plot to get their hands on some money that isn't theirs, but only if they act their parts right.

The movie centers around an all-night police stakeout of Novak's apartment, after her boyfriend robs a bank and takes it on the lam. MacMurray is a cop and figures his inside knowledge of both sides of the investigation should allow him to pull off the proverbial "perfect crime": lifting the loot while delivering the crook.

There's some great suspense as things unravel and the 1950s black & white photography is great. There are hints of REAR WINDOW (1954) as the police watch the apartment during the stakeout. Dorothy Malone is adorable as Novak's next-door neighbor, who catches the eye of one of the cops through his binoculars. (It's a sweet romantic plot, not a creepy one.) E.G. Marshall heads a solid supporting cast. A very enjoyable film noir that may go under the radar. Check it out.

It could have been an 8

[vision_lines · 7/10 · 24 January 2016]

I enjoyed this movie, as I think Fred MacMurray is one of our great actors, with a wide range. Comedy to drama. Happy nerd to hardened cop or lower level establishment man. Clearly he is bored with his mission in life in this film and the great Double Indemnity.

Possible Spoilers:

OK. why a 7 and not an 8? I felt Paul Sheridan's (MacMurry) disgust with his life and his apparent loneliness could have used more development. He falls too easily for Kim Novak's character, even if she is strikingly beautiful. She too easily goes with him the first night they meet. It would be more believable, and more sensual, if there were two meetings at least, to pulse his desire for her.

Now, I don't particularly like films where the male star is a little long in the tooth for his paramour.This was common in the 50s and 60s when Male stars of the 30s and 40s were cast with much younger female leads, presumably because of the men's star power. I put forward Bogart,and Bill Holden with Audrey Hepburn (totally unbelievable) in Sabrina, Bogart being 55 and Hepburn 25.Or Rear Window with an older Jimmy Stewart, age 47, and Grace Kelly, 25.

With some suspended belief, this is a very enjoyable movie. I love noir.The story lines of noir are simple and pure and the mood dark. I believe this movie pulls it off though it was the waning period of noir: 1954;

breakout star Kim Novak

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 3 December 2017]

A bank robbery ends with the killing of a security guard. Sexy Lona McLane (Kim Novak) in a crippled car is saved by Paul Sheridan (Fred MacMurray) and they have a fling. He's a cop assigned to stakeout a known robber's girlfriend who turns out to be Lona. She sets out to corrupt the pushover cop in her own scheme. Police Lieutenant Karl Eckstrom (E.G. Marshall) is his boss.

Fred MacMurray continues his noir leading man and Kim Novak is the breakout star. She definitely has all the star qualities. She is sexy, alluring, superior, innocent, and devious. It's an all-around performance. MacMurray is doing compelling work. It does need more tension especially in the first half. Maybe make Paul the lead investigator in the case and start with him at the bank investigating. There is too much waiting for the situation to develop although I'm not sure how to speed it up.

Fred MacMurray knows how to handle Kim Novak as he plays The Pushover.

[cgvsluis · 7/10 · 11 October 2023]

I am so used to seeing Fred MacMurray play a good guy that watching him play Paul Sheridan, a police officer with questionable morals, really added interest to this noir film. He gets seduced, although I think "Pushover" is too strong of a word, by Kim Novak's character Lona, who did not have to work very hard. A violent bank robber is on the run and the police have his latest mol Lona's place under surveillance.

Meanwhile, Paul makes contact with Lona to get information out of her...but the tables get turned as she slowly convinces him to try to get the money for then to be together...a simple plan involving killing her boyfriend. Paul's partner does a little voyeuristic watching of Lona's next door neighbor who is a nurse played by Dorothy Malone named Ann Stewart. And it's a good thing he did...because these two are the key to solving this crime!

"I don't think you're getting any spark"-Paul

I liked seeing this more manly side of Fred MacMurray, who really took Kim Novak into his arms forcefully for their first kiss. I also really enjoyed the straight cop played by Philip Carey. He and Dorothy Malone really were the saving graces of this film.

Novak is lovely in her bullet bra sex kitten kind of way and MacMurray tougher than I have ever seen him. This should be a must see for noir fans and I think Novak and MacMurray fans as well. This is a recommendation from me.

Vulnerable Cop Corrupted By Seductive Femme Fatale

[seymourblack-1 · 8/10 · 13 August 2017]

Despite being a B-movie that didn't make much money at the time of its initial release, "Pushover" will still appeal strongly to the average film noir fan. Its story about obsession, betrayal and murder contains many familiar elements but remains thoroughly engrossing throughout because it's well paced, frequently suspenseful and has a compelling plot. The atmosphere is claustrophobic and this is reinforced visually by the action being staged mostly in small, often cramped, rooms and dark rainy streets. The shadowy interiors are beautifully photographed and the ways in which the streetlights reflect on wet roads and illuminate raindrops on the cars are just a couple of examples of the superb quality of D.P. Lester White's work.

Middle-aged LAPD Detective Paul Sheridan (Fred MacMurray) makes the acquaintance of an attractive young blonde called Lona McLane (Kim Novak) after she has some problems with her car and the couple quickly become lovers when they spend some time together waiting for the necessary repairs to be carried out. All is not as it appears however, because this apparently random meeting was set up by Paul who'd been assigned to the task by his boss because Lona is suspected of being the girlfriend of a wanted fugitive and Paul has been told to find out whether she knows her fiancé's whereabouts. He soon reports back to Detective Lieutenant Carl Eckstrom (E.G.Marshall) that he's convinced that she is in a relationship with bank robber Harry Wheeler (Paul Richards).

Eckstrom feels confident that Wheeler will contact Lona at some point and so arranges for her phone to be tapped and for her apartment to be kept under constant surveillance. Paul and his fellow detective Rick McAllister (Philip Carey) are part of the stakeout team who occupy a room that overlooks Lona's apartment and together they wait for Wheeler to make his move. It's during this period that Lona suspects that Paul is a cop and when she confronts him on the issue, he eventually admits that she's right but assures her that his interest in her is genuine. She remarks that the $200,000 that had been stolen from the bank by Wheeler's gang could set them up nicely for the future if they could get their hands on it when Wheeler is eventually apprehended. Paul wants no part in that kind of scheme and soon returns to his stakeout duties.

Rick starts to find his work becomes a little less tedious when he starts watching Lona's attractive neighbour, Ann Stewart (Dorothy Malone) but also one of Paul's colleagues notices that he is steadily becoming more and more agitated. Completely obsessed by Lona, Paul arranges to meet her again and together they agree to carry out her plan. A telephone call that she receives on the following day than sets Paul off in pursuit of the stolen money but the complications that follow soon lead him into desperation, betrayals and murders when things suddenly start to spiral out of control.

The sequences in which the detectives spy on the women through binoculars are uncomfortably voyeuristic and very similar to certain scenes in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" which was also released in the same year as this movie. The bank robbery and an episode that takes place in Ann Stewart's apartment are played out without any dialogue and as well as being well directed are also rather Hitchcockian in style.

During his childhood, Paul had frequently witnessed his parents arguing about money and this experience led him to believe that without plenty of cash, a successful relationship with a woman would be completely impossible. As a result, he was always more vulnerable than most to being corrupted by anyone with Lona's mindset and greed. Fred MacMurray does well at portraying his character's confident and competent exterior while also giving signs along the way of how he's gradually unravelling. Kim Novak, in her first starring role, is well cast as the seductive femme fatale and Philip Carey and Dorothy Malone also contribute a couple of really good supporting performances.

An effective little film

[funkyfry · 7/10 · 29 October 2002]

Tight, driven little piece of "film noir" with MacMurray as a good cop driven to distraction (and murder) by the ganster moll (Novak, in her film debut) he's been assigned to spy on. Malone fills in for a charming bit as the girl-next-door who MacMurray's sidekick falls for (she should have been allowed to steal the movie from the inadequate Novak, as well). Typically, a mistake is made by the criminals, and they WILL pay for it, but they're having fun along the way.

Some confusion in the script seems to have resulted in Novak's character turning sympathetic (to the audience) towards the end, sounding a disingenuous note (this kind of thing always smacks of studio interference when it concerns a new "star"). Still, good solid bit of film.

Not Quite

[jjelgar · 8/10 · 16 February 2003]

This is a fairly tight little thriller, a good but not quite good enough film noir to be counted among the classics. While it owes a lot to "Double Indemnity" and foreshadows "Rear Window," it just doesn't rise to their memorable level. Fred MacMurray offers an eerily familiar, though less inspired, repeat of his performance in the Wilder classic; Kim Novak (in her first film) is no match for Stanwyck, nor did she ever become one; Richard Quine simply was not as fine a director as Hitchcock or Wilder. And yet, it's a pretty good bit of entertainment, recommended to those who appreciate the genre as a whole rather than merely a short list of classics.

Slim but enjoyable noir...

[moonspinner55 · 7/10 · 27 July 2003]

Uneven director Richard Quine helmed this combination crime-noir and character portrait, which made a lasting impression as the debut feature for a new smoky beauty, the alluring Kim Novak. Fred MacMurray (miscast but not-bad) stars as a conflicted cop who decides to step into the gutter after being assigned to meet and stake out a beautiful gangster's girl. Intriguingly set in and around a Los Angeles apartment complex, "Pushover" isn't quite the pulpy thriller it was advertised as, yet it does work as an intriguing study of various people teetering on the edge of morality. Especially worth-seeing for Novak's star-making performance, as well as for Dorothy Malone's engaging spunk playing Kim's neighbor. MacMurray continues to look like a Basset Hound with constipation, but his final scene provides terrific movie justice. *** from ****

***1/2

[edwagreen · 9/10 · 6 December 2017]

Excellent film noir where Fred Mac Murray repeats his falling into evil as he did ten years earlier in the memorable "Double Indemnity."

In her film debut, Kim Novak already showed problematic acting as the moll of a bank robber who Fred, the cop, falls for and the two plan to get the money that her boyfriend had stolen in a bank robbery.

With the exception of "The Eddy Duchin Story," and "Jeanne Eagels," both films where she was terrific, Novak just doesn't put it over in the role of the moll.

The role of the moll would have been better suited for Dorothy Malone, who would cop a supporting Oscar two years later in the great "Written on the Wind." Instead, Malone is relegated in playing the nurse next door, who is Mac Murray's ultimate downfall when she keeps meeting him at the most inopportune time for him.

We have a real good suspense thriller here as other police begin to piece together what is really going on in discovering that Fred is the real culprit here.

Fred's fall guy reprise.

[st-shot · 6/10 · 22 November 2019]

Fred MacMurray clearly has not learned his lesson in Pushover where another fatale scrambles his brain and career with a promise of happily after after. While no Double Indemnity it is a more than passable suspense tightly edited with its fair share of tense moments.

After a huge bank haul cops put a 24/7 surveillance on the thief's moll Lona Mc Clane (Kim Novak). One of the squad, detective Sheridan (Mac Murray) gets too close however making him a "pushover " for the experienced Lona.

Released a month before Hitchcock's Rear Window, Pushover establishes a similar beach head with the cops observing from an apartment across the courtyard the comings and goings of Lona along with her neighbor, a nurse (Dorothy Malone) next door. The voyeuristic overtones are cleverly handled by director Richard Quine who economically leaves the uncouth to a couple of reliefs who have half a minute of screen time allowing Sheridan to focus on getting Lona out of her fix and his partner (Phil Carey) to carry on a chaste observation of the nurse next door.

Novak in her debut is surprisingly effective, especially when she has to get tough. Outstanding as he was in Double, MacMurray is miscast here, lacking the intensity of a more suitable Kirk Douglas. There is simply no passion in the clinches or spark in the coupling.

Quine keeps the pace and suspense at a decent pitch within the limited space of the apartment building but Sheridan's bungling towards the climax becomes far fetched as the film collapses under the weight of a mawkish poorly composed final scene.

Disappointing

[erich.sargeant · 5/10 · 5 October 2014]

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.