I Want to Live!

Barbara Graham is a woman who has been in and out of prison. Bad cheques, prostitution, perjury. She is trying to straighten out; she marries and has a child. Her husband uses drugs and there is no money. She falls back in with old acquaintances. A woman is killed in her home and those present during the robbery are caught. Barbara is arrested too. Two of the men name her as the killer in their statements and get their own sentences reduced. Barbara says she is innocent. The court does not believe her. A date is set for the gas chamber and every stay becomes another wait. Robert Wise directs. Susan Hayward plays Barbara Graham; Simon Oakland, Virginia Vincent and Theodore Bikel are in the cast. It is an American production. Susan Hayward won the Oscar for best actress for the part. Its ground is a real case; Barbara Graham was executed in California in 1955. The screenplay draws on the writing of the journalist Ed Montgomery, who first wrote against Graham and then came to doubt how the case had been conducted. The narrative does not make Graham likeable; she lies, she talks coarsely, and the narrative does not tidy that up. The last section shows the preparation for the execution step by step and is built like documentary. The music is jazz; Johnny Mandel's score is used as though it were playing inside the scene. Its limit is its side; the narrative assumes Graham's innocence and in the real case that is not settled. Who it is for: viewers who like courtroom drama and American cinema of the late fifties. Who it is not for: the last section is hard, the narrative one sided, and the ending merciless.