Stanley Fish on Kim Novak’s enduring, and often misunderstood, appeal;

MacMurray plays a cop assigned to ingratiate himself with her in the hope that she will lead him to her gangster boyfriend. But, as TCM host Robert Osborne observed, one look at Novak and he’s lost. When he’s not watching her, the camera is, for the plot consists largely of a surveillance operation; a team of detectives spends endless hours looking at Novak through binoculars, as do we. It is voyeurism from a distance, and emphasizes her status as a glittering something beheld from afar.

via greencine