Last Friday, I featured Strangers When We Meet, directed by Richard Quine. Today, a movie that Quine made six years earlier—Pushover (1954). The film noir is notable for several reasons. It was Kim Novak's first feature film, and she runs away with it as the cool femme fatale looking for an out. Fred MacMurray stars as the leather-soul detective also looking for an out. He appeared in Pushover one month after The Caine Mutiny's release and two months before Woman's World. In Pushover, E.G. Marshall plays Lieutenant Carl Eckstrom. And Phil Carey plays detective Rick McAllister, the same Phil Carey who in 1971 appeared in a pivotal All in the Family TV episode as an ex-professional football player and friend of Archie Bunker who reveals he's gay. [Photo above, from left, Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak and Phil Carey in Pushover]
Quine did a strong job on direction, although the storyline is clunky and spare, with little character development and few twists. Exterior scenes were shot in Burbank, including in front of the old Magnolia Theatre on Magnolia Blvd. The theatre was sold to Barbra Streisand in 1979; she turned it into a recording studio. MacMurray and Novak clearly have chemistry, and the film made Novak a major star. Unclear from my research is whether Quine and Novak began their romantic relationship during this film. They became engaged during Strangers When We Meet, with expectations of marrying after filming wrapped. But Novak broke it off. In his retiring years, Quine killed himself with a gun in 1989. [Photo above of Richard Quine]
Here's Kim Novak and Fred MacMurray (above) in Pushover...
