Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

LeonLouisRicci Things looked slicker and brighter in the Fifties Film-Noir's for better or worse, mostly worse. This is a Mid-Fifties entry that is relentlessly suspenseful with edge of your seat anticipation. Almost all Scenes are at night and the rain is constant making this forever trying to break out of that Eisenhower shine and it manages quite well.Kim Novak debuting see-through and bra-less (at least in the first few scenes) is a honey of a trap and good but tainted (his parents did nothing but fight) Cop, Fred MacMurray is just too old and weary to resist such a young, beautiful Babe that also manages to be in proximity of a quarter Million unmarked.This is not great Noir but a fine Character Study and while the Dialog is not as sharp as it could be, it nevertheless is engaging and just Hard-Boiled enough to pass. There is a bit of off-beat Voyeurism tamed by that Fifties (here we go again) softening of a "Girl next door" blossoming Romance, started by a perversion but redeemed and on its way to the White Picket Fence.

secondtake 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.

WarnersBrother 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.

TheUnknown837-1 "Pushover" was the introductory film for legendary Hollywood actress Kim Novak, who had previously only been on screen for a few seconds between two separate movies. Here she plays a leading role alongside Fred MacMurray, Phil Carrey, E.G. Marshall, and Dorothy Malone in a film which is really nothing special. It's just another one of the early black-and-white crime noir movies that were very popular at that time. Don't misunderstand my critiquing. I am not impugning the movie, I'm just saying that it's about average and I had a good time watching it, so I give it three stars out of four.Novak plays the girlfriend of a mobster who is smitten with an undercover police detective played by Fred MacMurray. Eventually, their secretive romance leads up in the deaths of two men and they must try to figure a way to get out of it along with the two hundred thousand dollars the mobster robbed during a bank holdup after he murdered a police officer. The only trouble is, one of the neighbors (Dorothy Malone) can identify MacMurray's character as the suspect. And the other cops are catching on.Fred MacMurray has always been one of my favorite actors and I often found myself wanting to see him play a villain. I really can't say for sure if I would describe his character in "Pushover" as a villain but if that's what you would consider him, it's not the villain I wanted him to play. Still, he did a fine job as did everybody else. There's really not a whole lot to say about "Pushover" because, again, it's just like the other 50s crime noir films. Nothing special, but certainly an effective and entertaining method of spending one and a half hours.