"Pushover" was the introductory film for legendary Hollywood actress Kim Novak, who had previously only been on screen for a few seconds between two separate movies. Here she plays a leading role alongside Fred MacMurray, Phil Carrey, E.G. Marshall, and Dorothy Malone in a film which is really nothing special. It's just another one of the early black-and-white crime noir movies that were very popular at that time. Don't misunderstand my critiquing. I am not impugning the movie, I'm just saying that it's about average and I had a good time watching it, so I give it three stars out of four.<br /><br />Novak plays the girlfriend of a mobster who is smitten with an undercover police detective played by Fred MacMurray. Eventually, their secretive romance leads up in the deaths of two men and they must try to figure a way to get out of it along with the two hundred thousand dollars the mobster robbed during a bank holdup after he murdered a police officer. The only trouble is, one of the neighbors (Dorothy Malone) can identify MacMurray's character as the suspect. And the other cops are catching on.<br /><br />Fred MacMurray has always been one of my favorite actors and I often found myself wanting to see him play a villain. I really can't say for sure if I would describe his character in "Pushover" as a villain but if that's what you would consider him, it's not the villain I wanted him to play. Still, he did a fine job as did everybody else. There's really not a whole lot to say about "Pushover" because, again, it's just like the other 50s crime noir films. Nothing special, but certainly an effective and entertaining method of spending one and a half hours.