"Money isn't dirty, just people."

A low-rent Double Indemnity; cool blonde moll Kim Novak (in her first major screen role at Columbia) stirs up a sexual heat similar to that of Barbara Stanwyck in Wilder's noir thriller. She convinces a besotted police detective (MacMurray) - who seems willing to betray his beliefs for a blonde femme fatale - that killing her bank-robbing boyfriend and taking the stolen cash is all in the line of duty, even though it leads to inevitably disastrous consequences.

Pushover is probably the most under-rated of the numerous rogue-cop thrillers - including Rogue Cop, The Prowler, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Big Heat, Touch of Evil - that formed a key sub-genre within the 1950s film noir era.
- Paul Harris

"Initially Pushover resembles Double Indemnity with its plot of murder for money, in which a cool, beautiful blonde seduces a man into betraying his profession and his colleagues. The male protagonists in both films are similarly vulnerable, superficially clever but unwise men. They conceal their romantic disillusionment behind cynicism and must develop dual personalities simultaneously to engineer their crime and then begin a sham investigation of it." - Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, Film Noir