Lona’s gangster boyfriend is on the lam after knocking off a bank and killing a guard. The cops have Lona under twenty-four hour surveillance as they wait for the boyfriend to show. Day after day the cops watch as Lona paces back and forth in her apartment. She doesn’t read, entertain or do housework, knit or paint landscapes. She smokes. She’s boring as hell, but she’s Kim Novak. All she has to do is breathe.
Contrast Lona with the little brunette next door played by Dorothy Malone. The cops watch her because she’s next-door and she conveniently leaves her lights on and drapes open. She comes home from a hard day at work and makes canapés and hangs curtains. Busy, busy, busy like brunettes everywhere. Phil Carey is intrigued with her in his sexist, patronizing way, but he’s big and handsome and appearances have even more cache in this story than in life. And that’s a high bar.
We know from the first five minutes that Fred MacMurray is going for the lazy blonde and the easy money. And that he most likely won’t succeed. It’s not called Pushover for nothing. The tension in the story comes from trying to figure out the Kim Novak character. She sleeps with MacMurray the night they meet, so I’m thinking the woman has an agenda. And then later she suggests that they kill her boyfriend and take the money. This is classic femme fatale behavior, but as the story progresses, she shows unexpected loyalty towards Fred MacMurray. I find myself asking is she on the level? Are these two the noir version of star-crossed lovers?
The cinematography in Pushover is beautiful and the score hilarious: pensive jazz for MacMurray and Novak, the march of the righteous for Carey and the other honest cops, music straight from Lassie Come Home for Dorothy Malone. I love watching MacMurray play the fallen man and Kim Novak is stunning. Pushover is not Double Indemnity great, but it’s definitely worth seeing.