Rent Pushover (1954)

Fifties Noir. - Pushover review by Steve

This ostentatiously imitates Double Indemnity at every twist, though that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s wise to steal from the best. It even stars Fred MacMurray, though ten years have passed and he’s now too old for the role as the wage slave tempted by sex and greed.

And naturally Kim Novak, in her debut credit, is no match for Barbara Stanwyck as the femme fatale. Or as cold hearted. Still, she’s a sexy, blonde knockout as the moll of a murderer who has knocked over a bank. MacMurray is the cop on a stakeout at her swanky apartment.

So we get a touch of Hitchcock, with the cool blonde and the voyeurism. And there's some decent hardboiled dialogue. Which is plenty for a viable, if derivative thriller. But the leads are merely adequate and Richard Quine is a lesser director who doesn’t create much suspense.

Eventually, like Philip Carey as Fred’s surveillance buddy, it’s easy to get distracted by Dorothy Malone as the vivacious nurse who lives next door. She has charisma to burn. In ’54 this must have looked awfully old fashioned. But now, the reliable noir motifs will engage genre fans.