Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Majorthebys Charming and brutal

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Asad Almond A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Cowa Bunga I enjoyed this movie, as I think Fred MacMurray is one of our great actors, with a wide range. Comedy to drama. Happy nerd to hardened cop or lower level establishment man. Clearly he is bored with his mission in life in this film and the great Double Indemnity.Possible Spoilers: OK. why a 7 and not an 8? I felt Paul Sheridan's (MacMurry) disgust with his life and his apparent loneliness could have used more development. He falls too easily for Kim Novak's character, even if she is strikingly beautiful. She too easily goes with him the first night they meet. It would be more believable, and more sensual, if there were two meetings at least, to pulse his desire for her. Now, I don't particularly like films where the male star is a little long in the tooth for his paramour.This was common in the 50s and 60s when Male stars of the 30s and 40s were cast with much younger female leads, presumably because of the men's star power. I put forward Bogart,and Bill Holden with Audrey Hepburn (totally unbelievable) in Sabrina, Bogart being 55 and Hepburn 25.Or Rear Window with an older Jimmy Stewart, age 47, and Grace Kelly, 25.With some suspended belief, this is a very enjoyable movie. I love noir.The story lines of noir are simple and pure and the mood dark. I believe this movie pulls it off though it was the waning period of noir: 1954;

jjnxn-1 Although it's a reworking of MacMurray's far superior Double Indemnity this is still a decent little crime caper. Kim Novak is utterly ravishing in her first big screen role, showing herself already possessing undeniable screen presence and star charisma. Even if she never was the best actress on the block she registers on screen, your eye is drawn to her even when she isn't saying anything. There's also solid support from Phil Carey, Dorothy Malone and E. G. Marshall plus efficient direction by Richard Quine. Look very fast for a dark haired Marion Ross in a quick bit walking out of a building with Dorothy Malone.

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.

marcslope But it's not as effective as either noir, despite the presence of the former's Fred MacMurray in a similar role, and the voyeuristic titillation of the latter (much peering through binoculars at apartments across the courtyard, and nobody ever draws the blinds). He's a good-cop-turned-bad, seducing a bank robber's girlfriend (Kim Novak in her film debut, voluptuous as all getout but not trying very hard) and falling hard for her. The initial seduction is fun, much like Walter Neff squaring off with Babe Diedrickson (sp?) in "Double Indemnity." But the pair aren't ideally matched--by this time, MacMurray looks paunchy and less than leading-man suave, and his underplaying and her nonplaying leave us not caring that much whether the pair can pull their caper off. Maybe if he and the more vital Philip Carey, as his partner, had switched roles, there would be more heat. Some sharper dialog would help, too. Director Richard Quine shows a fondness for close-up shots of meaningless details, presumably just to throw the audience off. The noir mechanics include harsh black-and-white photography with an emphasis on the black, a pileup of bodies, and, most curiously, constant rain in what should be a sunny Los Angeles setting. A good enough time-waster, and it makes the most of its low budget, but more care could have produced something much better.