Pushover: A Review

 

PUSHOVER

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Fred MacMurray.

Pushover is the film debut for Kim Novak, which makes it a noteworthy film in and of itself. Separate from that, Pushover is a well-acted, well-directed story, even if it covers familiar film noir ground.

The beautiful Lona McLane (Novak) leaves a movie theater and has trouble with her car. Seemingly good Samaritan Paul Sheridan (Fred MacMurray) tries to help her, then helps himself to this luscious creature. However, things are not as they first appear.

Sheridan is actually a police detective who is trailing our buxom blonde. She is a gangster's moll who may know the whereabouts of both her man Wheeler (Paul Richards) or the thousands he stole from a bank. Sheridan has the blessings of the police department to pump our girl for information, but they did not count on them falling in love with each other.

Sheridan now finds himself falling into various temptations. He can't fully act on them however, thanks to his partner Rick McAllister (Phil Carey). There is also Detective Paddy Dolan (Allen Nourse), a struggling alcoholic close to retirement. All are overseen by Police Lieutenant Ekstrom (E.G. Marshall), a no-nonsense by-the-book officer.

It looks like things are looking up for Sheridan and McLane when Wheeler does show up. Through a series of circumstances, it looks like Sheridan can get the money and the woman. However, things soon start spinning out of control. McAllister, unaware of any of Sheridan's plans, gets unexpected help from Lona's neighbor Ann Stewart (Dorothy Malone), for whom he's fallen for during the stakeout. Will Sheridan and Lona get away with their crimes of passion or will they learn that crime does not pay?

Pushover, through no fault of its own, suffers by comparison to Double Indemnity. Not only do you have the male lead from Double Indemnity in Pushover, you also have a similar theme. Like Walter Neff in Double Indemnity, Paul Sheridan did it for the money and the woman. Like Walter Neff, he did not get the money and did not get the woman. Unlike the Billy Wilder film, though, the femme fatale was not a vile murderess but a surprisingly sympathetic character.

Pushover as stated was Kim Novak's debut. Her performance shows that she is new to film acting. It has a hesitancy and breathy delivery that seems nervous and unsure. While her performance is not strong, I think we can put that down to a nervousness at the start of her career. This does help her interpretation, as we see Lona as a scared woman. Novak is not strictly speaking a femme fatale in that she does not seem deliberately wicked, more of a mere accessory. In retrospect, Kim Novak did not give a good performance in Pushover, but she was competent enough to begin her long career on a good note. 

MacMurray, curiously, sometimes comes across as bored in Pushover. He does have good moments, such as when he is setting up a room to make it look as if had been occupied. As a side note, Pushover has an excellent opening scene where, like in the previously mentioned one, is dominated by silence. The opening scene is of the bank robbery, where only Arthur Morton's score is used. However, at times MacMurray seems a bit off in his acting, as if his heart was not in it. When planning his double-cross of both the gangster Wheeler and his partner McAllister, he seemed to be delivering his lines with no conviction.

Carey and Malone work well together as Rick and Ann, surprisingly playing a counter-love story to the seedy Lona and Paul one. This subplot makes Pushover almost a romance, bringing a little light into the dark world of film noir.  The minor roles of Nourse's tragic Dolan and Marshall's firm Eckstrom were also strong and interesting to see.

Roy Huggins' adaptation of two novels, Thomas Walsh's The Night Watch and William S. Ballinger's Rafferty has some downright daring lines. Early on, Lona's car does not start (more than likely tampered with to keep her under surveillance and allow Sheridan to help). "I don't think you're getting any spark," he tells her when looking at the vehicle. "I'm not?", she replies in her breathy tone. "Not enough to start the car," he replies. The double entendre is pretty clear, but it works for the scene. Shortly afterwards, as they leave the bar, they decide they should go home. "Your place or mine?", Sheridan asks her point-blank. "Surprise me," is her response, a line that even in noir films is openly brazen, even a little shocking in its meaning. 

One of director Richard Quine's best elements is how he keeps things moving at a brisk 88-minute runtime. Pushover rarely feels sluggish or padded, and that is a major plus given the subplots the film weaves in. You get the main story of Sheridan and McLane's dark romance. You have Ann Stewart and Rick McAllister's light romance. You have Dolan's struggles with alcohol. You have Sheridan's wicked plans to get the money and the woman. All that packed into a runtime shorter than many of today's films says something about how a film can tell a story and even give subplots their time without going on tangents.

Pushover is a strong film with some great moments and interesting, albeit perhaps familiar story. "Money isn't dirty, just people," someone observes. Money and lust can cause even good people to do terrible things. A film that should be better known and remembered for more than just Kim Novak, Pushover works well. 

DECISION: B+