There's some suspense in this crime-noir from uneven director Richard Quine, though actually "Pushover" is more successful as a character study, with Fred MacMurray miscast but not-bad as a conflicted good cop who decides to step into the gutter. He starts thinking with his hormones after being assigned to meet and stakeout a beautiful gangster's girl, played by alluring Kim Novak in her debut. Pleasantly set in and around a Los Angeles apartment complex, this isn't quite the pulpy thriller it was advertised as, yet it does work as an intriguing study of different people all teetering on the edge of morality. Especially worth-seeing for Novak's smoky beauty and Dorothy Malone's fresh, natural spunk playing Kim's neighbor. MacMurray continues to look like a Basset Hound with constipation, but his comeuppance (lying in a wet street on his belly) is terrific movie-justice. *** from ****