- If you enjoyed the plot and lead actor of Double Indemnity, the voyeurism of Rear Window, and the parts of Vertigo that creepily follow Kim Novak around town, then you might like Richard Quine's Pushover. Although admittedly not in the same league as those other three films, Pushover presents a compelling story of a detective named Paul Sheridan (Fred MacMurray), who goes a little too undercover in his investigation of Lona McLane (Kim Novak). When Sheridan first approaches Lona one night when her car won't start, the sparks and double entendres immediately begin to fly. Why would a gorgeous woman like Lona want to pick up a stiff like Sheridan? Naturally, it's because she's trying to avoid returning to her apartment after her boyfriend Harry Wheeler (Paul Richards) robbed a bank and killed a security guard. Sheridan's interest in Lona is strictly professional, of course.
- Sheridan, along with his friend and partner Rick McAllister (Phillip Carey), gets assigned to keep tabs on Lona from an apartment across the courtyard. While McAllister's eyes keep straying over to a nurse (Dorothy Malone) in the adjacent unit, Sheridan only has eyes for Lona. Eventually, the two lovebirds hatch a scheme to bump off Wheeler and steal the money for themselves. The only thing standing in the way is Sheridan's unreliable colleague Dolan (Allen Nourse), whose drinking on the job presents a constant threat to his pension. The police lieutenant (E. G. Marshall) even warned Sheridan to watch out for Dolan, although maybe it should have been the other way around. As the bodies and witnesses pile up, it's only going to be tougher for Sheridan to explain his increasingly strange behavior.
- The best parts of Pushover are its many dialogue-free scenes in which the police either watch or follow Lona through her remarkably uneventful daily routine. Although it seems like either this film or Rear Window must have influenced the other, the two films really appear to be unrelated contemporaries, having been released around the same time in 1954. While Novak (in her first credited performance) is quite good, MacMurray's acting comes across as intentionally wooden in a way that isn't nearly as effective as his heel turns in Double Indemnity or even The Apartment. As in Double Indemnity, you have to wonder what MacMurray's character is thinking when getting mixed up in a scheme like this, but Sheridan's taciturnity never allows for much insight. Given how many other men fawn over Lona in this film, maybe it was just peer pressure?
