it is her film. a strange film because, without be great, it is more than touching. the story of a prostitute and her guilty. a film about a murder. and about life in a different perspective. Susan Hayward has the huge science to explore each nuance of her character . and this did the film more than one of many sad stories about the waste of life. because it is easy to be prey of melodramatic solutions in this genre of role. it is easy to ignore the limits. or to give to public only a sketch or shadow. and this subtle art to propose a living Barbara Graham, with her superficiality, hopes, courage, fears defines a film who remains, after a half of century, not remarkable but special.

Barbara Graham (1923-1955) is a woman with dubious moral standards, often a guest in seedy bars. She has been sentenced for some petty crimes. Two men she knows murder an older woman. When they get caught they start to think that Barbara has helped the police to arrest them. As revenge they tell the police that Barbara is the murderer.I was not familiar with the Barbara Graham case. I suppose I should say I am still not, at least not enough to compare the film to reality. So on that count, I have no opinion.But as a film in itself, this is great work. I can see the Oscar award was well-deserved. What I liked best, in fact, was how Graham was portrayed not necessarily as sympathetic. Innocent or not, she is coarse and rough around the edges. I appreciate they didn't make her seem too nice.

Believe me - 1958's "I Want To Live!" is a pretty grim, but, nevertheless, equally powerful "real-life" Drama about party-girl, petty criminal and convicted murderess, Barbara Graham.In 1953 Graham was an accomplice in the senseless robbery and brutal murder of the elderly Mabel Monahan. Eventually found guilty for her part in this crime, Graham was sentenced to execution in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison in 1955. Graham was 31 at the time of her death.Filmed in stark b&w, and masterfully directed by Robert Wise, this picture won actress Susan Hayward an Oscar for "Best Actress".Featuring a moody Jazz score, this is the sort of film that requires the viewer to have nerves of steel, especially during the agonizing moments of its riveting finale.

I WANT TO LIVE! is a highly fictionalized account of the life of crime and the death in San Quentin's gas chamber of Barbara Graham. A petty thief and prostitute for most of her life, Graham sealed her fate by taking part in a robbery that went bad and the victim ended up dead.In real life, the evidence against Graham was pretty clear; the film casts several shadows of doubt and implies that she was railroaded, an unnecessary device insofar as the truth was just as compelling, particularly the numerous last minute stays of half an hour at a time.Barbara Graham obviously was a meaty role for any actress, and it won Susan Hayward her only Oscar after laboring in Hollywood for more than twenty years. Only problem: it is neither her best role nor her best performance. The whitewashing of the character of Graham weakens the film, and Robert Wise uncharacteristically lets Hayward overact all over the place; the end result is more Hollywood than San Quentin.Now, I've never thought Hayward was a great actress, but she was by no means incapable of an Oscar-worthy performance; it's just that this wasn't it. She was nominated for three Oscars for playing real-life people, and I just wish she could have won for her Lillian Roth in I'LL CRY TOMORROW or, even better, her Jane Froman in WITH A SONG IN MY HEART, which I have always thought was her best performance even though she did not do her own singing (Froman did the vocals). In fact, watching I WANT TO LIVE! the other night, it struck me that Ida Lupino would have been a much better choice for the role: she was just a few months younger than Hayward and the resemblance between the two was more than a passing one, and I think Lupino had the necessary chops to play the part without the mechanics showing. When I was in acting school one of the things I heard constantly when working on scenes was "STOP ACTING!", a phrase which stems from a piece of advice to young actors from the great Spencer Tracy: "Never let them (the audience) catch you at it." The one thing the film does have is the unbearable tension as the clock ticks away for Graham, with several last-minute stays, and the final scene in the gas chamber is more harrowing than the death chamber scene more than a generation later in DEAD MAN WALKING. DMW is a great film but the lethal injection is harder to make horrifying than the gas chamber, particularly in light of World War II.Interestingly, the two films together do make a cogent argument against the death penalty. Punishment and revenge are not the same thing, and a civilized society has to ask itself the question: if we as a people put criminals to death are we not lowering ourselves to their level? I wish I liked this movie better. Wise was a great director, and Hayward worked her shapely behind off in this role. But in the end she tried too hard and for some reason Wise did not rein her in. Hayward proved in WITH A SONG IN MY HEART that she was capable of underplaying for effect; Wise should have put that talent to better use here.