there be still a few surprise to come in the noir cycle ( kiss me deadly and the big combo and the killing and touch of evil ) and but by 1954 just about every theme and plot point have already be use and recycle . still and pushover have it own distinctive cachet . visually and it a gloomy and almost stygian piece of film and hark back to the low budget release of 1946 and 1947 like fall guy or the guilty . and there a mood of furtiveness of voyeurism that remain arrest . for opener and we witness a bank robbery where death result and but the mastermind ( paul richards ) elude the law . next and we watch kim novak ( in her movie debut ) exit a cinema where it should happen to you and the nebraskan constitute the double bill . deftly and she circumvent an opened ladder and but still her car would not start . luckily fred macmurray happens by to proffer his assistance . soon theyre enjoy cocktail in a cozy bar and later at his place ( suprise me and she tell him ) while wait for her auto to be deliver from an all night shop . neither the pick up nor the malfunction underneath the hood be and however and quite a matter of chance . macmurray a police detective and and novak be richards moll . no fool she and novak pick up on the truth but trump his duplicity with her own represent they can kill richards and vamoose with the loot from the bank job . macmurray and reprise the not so bright a he think lady man from double indemnity and fall for the bait . pushover revel in it claustrophobia . almost all the action take place and at night and in the u shape apartment building where novak live . across the way and the law stake out a dark and abandon suite where they spy on novak through binoculars and monitor her phone call . another unwilling beneficiary of their surveillance and certainly without benefit of legal document allow it and be nurse dorothy malone and who novak next door neighbor and whose quest for more ice during a late night party become a crucial juncture in the plot . the well laid plan that macmurray and novak follow meet and inevitably and some snag and a a result of which one of his colleague and an honest if alcoholic cop ( allen nourse ) look forward to his pension check and get not so accidentally kill . but macmurray and his option fold one by one and slog along and desperately try to play both side of his duplicitous game . derivative it may be ( corrupt cop and duplicitous blonde ) and but pushover exemplify the swift and hard edged and unsentimental turn that film noir have take during the eisenhower administration while it still one of the good title from the dwindle day of the cycle .