Pushover

Pushover is a 1954 crime drama about a police detective assigned to watch the girlfriend of a bank robber. Paul Sheridan takes the job, but he soon becomes involved with Lona McLane, the woman he is supposed to be trailing. When she learns who he really is, she tries to use their relationship to her own advantage, and Sheridan finds himself drawn further into the case than he intended. The film was directed by Richard Quine, and its screenplay was written by Roy Huggins. It was produced by Philip A. Waxman and Jules Schermer for Columbia Pictures, and it runs 88 minutes. Fred MacMurray plays Sheridan, with Kim Novak as Lona McLane, Philip Carey as Rick McAllister, Dorothy Malone as Ann Stewart, and E.G. Marshall as Police Lt. Carl Eckstrom.

The film sits early in Quine's directing career, before later work such as Bell, Book and Candle in 1958 and Sex and the Single Girl and Paris When It Sizzles in 1964. Its cast of 29 credited performers supports a fairly compact production. On IMDb, Pushover holds a rating of 7.1 out of 10 from around 4,700 votes, while on TMDB it has a 6.6 out of 10 from 77 votes. A critics' rating of 6.7 out of 10 from seven reviews places it slightly above the audience score on TMDB and close to the IMDb figure.