Pushover (1954)

Pushover (USA, 1954) 88 min B&W DIR: Richard Quine. PROD: Jules Schermer. SCR: Roy Huggins, based on stories by Thomas Walsh and William S. Ballinger. MUSIC: Arthur Morton. DOP: Lester H. White. CAST: Fred MacMurray, Phil Carey, Kim Novak, Dorothy Malone, E.G. Marshall, Paul Richards. (Columbia Pictures)

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As a lesser-known, B-list film noir, Pushover is a worthwhile discovery, capably handled by director Richard Quine (Drive a Crooked Road). The film bears a certain resemblance to noir classic Double Indemnity, with Fred MacMurray again playing a character of some authority who is seduced by a blonde bombshell and the lure of easy money into a deadly web of deception and betrayal. While Pushover doesn’t achieve Double Indemnity’s highly-charged tension, depth of character development, brilliant mise-en-scene or snappy dialogue (Raymond Chandler’s standards are hard to match), it is a solid effort that is executed in recognizably noir fashion, while keeping the suspenseful storyline front and centre.

Pushover gets right down to business, opening with a hard-boiled bank robbery that quickly turns into a shoot-out, leaving a security guard dead. With gang-leader Harry Wheeler (Paul Richards) at large, police investigator Paul Sheridan (MacMurray) goes undercover to connect with Wheeler’s girlfriend, cool blonde temptress Leona McLane (Kim Novak, in her introductory role). The two exchange breathy, suggestive dialogue, and are soon sharing cocktails and getting more intimate in Sheridan’s apartment. Sheridan falls for the gangster’s moll, and after McLane discovers his true identity as a cop, her loyalties quickly shift. To cement their forbidden affair, McLane suggests to an uneasy Sheridan that they lure in Wheeler and make off with his take from the robbery. Sheridan is initially hesitant, but against his better judgement, he gives in to his greed for the stolen money, which he believes will be his key to McLane’s loyalty. Sheridan soon finds himself in an impossible situation: in his role as an investigator, he is assigned to put McLane’s apartment under around-the-clock surveillance with a team of undercover cops, making it extremely risky for him to communicate with her. When Wheeler does finally make an appearance, Sheridan guns him down in front of another cop, and is then forced to kill his own colleague to cover up his impulsive actions. Cracks begin to appear in the separated couple’s ill-conceived plan, and while a frustrated McLane waits in her apartment for a signal to leave, tension mounts as Sheridan’s boss (the gruff, no-nonsense E.G. Marshall) begins asking pointed questions regarding Sheridan’s whereabouts and activities. In a final act of desperation, Sheridan takes McLane’s neighbour as a hostage, and he and McLane make a break for it, with Wheeler’s car and the loot waiting outside the apartment building. Sheridan is gunned down by his own men while McLane looks on, and as he lies bleeding on the pavement, he says to her regretfully, “We really didn’t need that money, did we?”

Pushover ends on a typically moralistic note, although it’s hard to really feel sorry for Sheridan. Unlike MacMurray’s Walter Neff character in Double Indemnity, who is betrayed at the eleventh hour by Barbara Stanwyck’s scheming femme fatale, Sheridan is really the architect of his own downfall. Even when McLane questions his extreme measures and urges him to abandon the doomed plan, he pushes onwards and ultimately drags her down with him, painting himself into a corner with no escape route. Pushover gives an older MacMurray a chance to retrace his steps down dead-end streets, and for his efforts, he receives another bullet in the gut. The story plays out in a true film noir environment, with most of the action taking place in lonely, shadow-soaked apartments, and rain-slicked nocturnal city streets, with a generic cocktail bar and police offices thrown in for good measure. Pushover is a standard crime film of the era, an enjoyable picture that doesn’t break any new ground, but reflects the dark aesthetics and harrowing storylines of film noir without delving too deep into the heart of darkness.

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Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #13 (“Noir”).