Kick-Back Friday: February 2012 Archives

Pushover (1954): Back to noir. As a cop after a bank robber, Fred MacMurray romances the criminal's girlfriend (Kim Novak) to get a lead on the stolen money; but then he falls hard for real. Essential elements of Pushover, specifically the police surveillance of Novak, echo the entire setup of Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954)—which was released almost simultaneously. And of course, Novak's turn as a potentially duplicitous girlfriend anticipates her troubling role in Vertigo (1958). With E. G. Marshall, Philip Carey, and Dorothy Malone.

Murder! (1930): Despite its year of production, this very early effort from Hitchcock (his third talkie!) displays the important signature elements of the director's enduring stories of suspense and murder, including deliberate camera placement, liberal scenes of comedic relief, and an exploration of abnormal psychology. Particularly notable here is the blurred distinction between events on and off the theatrical stage.

While serving on a jury, a famous English thespian, "Sir John," reluctantly votes to convict a pretty young actress of murder. But nagging doubts about the actress's guilt prompt a reexamination of the crime, and Sir John uses his dramatic knowledge in an attempt to catch the real killer.

Poster for Murder! from Wikipedia and reproduced under fair use law.

Pimpernel Smith (1941) is Leslie Howard's updated riff on his previous leading role in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), the classic espionage adventure of rescue set during the French Revolution. In the former movie, released just 2 years before Howard's shocking and untimely death at the hands of the Luftwaffe, Howard is Horatio Smith, an absent-minded archeology professor at Cambridge who recruits his students for a summer trip to Socialist Germany. From the very beginning of the film, it is utterly transparent that the professor leads a double life as a smuggler of human cargo out of the terrorist state, but Howard consistently sustains the film with his nonpareil blitheness and comical faux obliviousness in the company of Nazi officers. In the end, the film is nothing but shameless Allied propaganda,* complete with a heavy-handed, proselytizing monologue; but by God, Howard's unapologetic delivery at this point is truly energizing.

* Which is possibly why the Luftwaffe targeted Howard for death in 1943.

Poster for Pimpernel Smith, released as Mister V in the United States, from Wikipedia and reproduced under fair use law.