The Pusher
M.K.R. Films / United Artists (1959) Dir. Gene Milford
81 min. / B&W / 1.85:1 / SDH
MGM Blu-ray $19.99
Didn’t see this one coming, an extremely hard-hitting cross between a standard police procedural and a seamy drug-drenched exploitation classic, made on a low budget but filmed in great part on the streets of New York, based on the third of the long-running series of 87th Precinct books by Ed McBain, with a screenplay by Harold Robbins. The Pusher indirectly led to a short-lived TV series called 87th Precinct.
A young Puerto Rican man is found dead; suicide by hanging? Nope, somebody injected him with enough heroin that he never could’ve gotten the rope tied. The trail leads the detectives to the dead man’s sister, a dancer in a club; her boyfriend, a shady character who lives in a ritzy Riverside Drive bachelor pad yet has no apparent source of income; and most ominously to the daughter of one of the detectives on the trail of… *** key overly dramatic music *** THE PUSHER.
Purportedly intended to be the first in a film series of McBain novels, but it didn’t work out that way: The Pusher was filmed in 1958, copyrighted in 1959, and not released until 1960, and it's easy to surmise that it's tawdry subject matter was one reason it was kept on the shelf. Possibly when NBC was considering an 87th Precinct television series, somebody noted that there was an unreleased film based on the property. It might’ve been Robert Lansing, who starred as Det. Steve Carella in both The Pusher and the TV series (it ran one season, 1961-1962). Or maybe it was just coincidence.
The rest of the cast is nondescript at best, and may have been harvested from local NY TV or stage productions. Unknown Douglas Rodgers is Lt. Byrne, whose daughter knows the Pusher much better than her father suspects; Kathy Carlyle is the daughter, and she’s talented and attractive but apparently boasts only one other screen credit; and Felice Orlandi is Gonzo, a/k/a the Pusher. He was an Italian-American actor from Cleveland who is so oily and despicable that it’s tough to find much merit in his performance, other than he plays oily and despicable very well.
Clearly, then, the cast isn’t what is going to attract anybody to The Pusher, but it’s a powerful drama with sensational shots of late-50s Manhattan and the outer boroughs (it’s only on the cramped interior sets that the film’s meager budget shows itself). Arthur J. Ornitz’ cinematography is marvelous, at least in the outdoors; the film was apparently shot in the bleakest, greyest autumn New York had ever seen. Ornitz would go on to shoot Charley, Death Wish, and Serpico, among many other films. Director Milford won two Academy Awards for Editing, including On the Waterfront. This was his only director credit (and he’s one of three producers of the film, probably how he got the job). Also worth mentioning is Raymond Scott’s score, which effortlessly flows from appropriate, moody, and jazzy to bombastic and overwhelming, but then, the guy got his start in cartoons, so we’ll give him his due.
Drug use is not shown in The Pusher, but its effects are, and there are provocative scenes galore from heroin-drenched women and junkie gang members. Incidentally, the term “heroin” is not used, but the nickname “horse” is.
A couple of other things worth noting: this is rumored to be John Astin’s film debut, but he’s not listed in the cast and we couldn’t spot him amongst the precinct detectives. And the Internet and the MGM Blu-ray packaging list the film as 1.37:1, but it’s in 1.85:1 widescreen and looks like it was framed that way, not just masked for it.
There are a lot of good, tough cop movies of the 1950s and ‘60s out there, some better, most worse, but despite a lack of star power, The Pusher delivers the grimy goods and is highly recommended for fans of the genre or people who love watching cops on the beat filmed on the streets of 1950s Manhattan.
