I Want to Live!

Plot

In 1950 San Francisco, petty criminal and prostitute Barbara Graham faces a misdemeanor charge for soliciting sex. She returns to her native San Diego, but is soon charged with perjury after she provides two criminal friends a false alibi. She subsequently returns to prostitution and other criminal activities to make a living and begins working for thief Emmett Perkins by luring men to his gambling parlor. Barbara manages to earn a significant amount of money, and quits working for Emmett to marry Hank, her third husband. The couple have a son, Bobby, but their marriage is in turmoil because of Hank's heroin addiction and physical abuse.

Barbara forces Hank to leave, but she is soon evicted from her apartment. Desperate, she leaves Bobby in the care of Hank's mother and returns to working for Emmett, who is now associated with thugs John Santo and Bruce King. Police crack down on the operation and Barbara surrenders. During the interrogation, she is stunned when authorities accuse her of helping Perkins and Santo murder Mabel Monohan, an elderly Burbank woman. Barbara insists that she was home with her husband and son on the night of the murder but is indicted by a grand jury. Barbara's childhood friend Peg visits her in jail and agrees to help care for Bobby.

Attorney Richard Tibrow is assigned to Barbara's case and informs her that her alibi is meaningless unless Hank can corroborate it. Barbara furtively concocts a phony alibi with Ben Miranda, supposedly a friend of a fellow prisoner. At the trial, it is revealed that Ben is a police officer who recorded her confession with a hidden microphone during their meeting. Barbara insists that she sought the false alibi only to avoid the death penalty, and that her admission is false. She is ultimately convicted, along with Emmett and John, and all three are sentenced to death.

Tibrow withdraws from Barbara's case and is replaced by Al Matthews. In prison, Barbara is relentlessly defiant, refusing to wear her uniform and demanding a radio. Matthews has psychologist Carl Palmberg evaluate Barbara, hoping to ultimately administer a lie detection test. After visiting with her, Carl states that while Barbara appears to be amoral, she is averse to violence. He also observes that she is left-handed, and the murder was committed by a right-handed person. Journalist Edward Montgomery, who has covered Barbara's case all along, questions her conviction and publishes a sympathetic series of articles describing her troubled life. As her execution date draws near, Barbara grows increasingly anxious. A Supreme Court stay gives her hope that her sentence may be commuted, but it is overturned when Carl dies unexpectedly of heart disease. Al's petition for a retrial is denied, and Barbara's execution date is set.

Accuracy

According to historian Kathleen Cairns, I Want to Live! "implied that Graham's guilt or innocence was largely irrelevant, that the real crime was committed by a justice system that framed her and a media that abetted the effort... In reality, the film took liberty with many facts of the case." The film also suggests that Graham, though believed to have sociopathic tendencies in real life, was dangerous only to herself as a result of her loveless childhood and abusive mother.

A prologue and epilogue contributed to the film by Edward Montgomery, the journalist who covered Graham's case for the San Francisco Examiner, characterize the film's content, which largely portrays Graham as innocent of the murder, as factual. However, there may have been substantial evidence of Graham's complicity in the crime, including her taped confession to an undercover officer. In an interview with Robert Osborne, Susan Hayward admitted that her research on the evidence and letters in the case led her to believe that Graham was guilty.

Despite some of the liberties taken with Graham's story, the film's depiction of the California gas chamber was regarded as accurate.

Production

Development

The film's screenplay was originally written by Don Mankiewicz based on letters by convicted murderer Barbara Graham, who was executed in 1955, and a series of articles by journalist Edward S. Montgomery. In early 1958, after a draft of the screenplay was completed, Nelson Gidding was commissioned to write a redraft and tighten the narrative as it "lacked focus" and contained too many pages concentrating on Graham's troubled childhood. Gidding's redraft omitted any depiction of the murder of Mable Monohan as well as Graham's months spent at San Quentin State Prison during her appeals.

Casting

When questioned about taking the controversial role, Susan Hayward said: "I just had to play her. If I hadn't thought they should make [the film], I wouldn't have played the part."

Filming

Principal photography began in March 1958. Production was stopped after Hayward contracted measles.

To ensure that the execution sequence was depicted as accurately as possible, Wise attended a public execution at San Quentin. Hayward commented after completing filming that her simulated experience of execution convinced her that the practice was "medieval."

Musical score

In addition to Mandel's score, the film features jazz themes performed by Gerry Mulligan's combo. Two soundtrack albums were released by United Artists Records in 1958.

Release

Although some sources state that the film grossed $3.5 million, the Walter Wanger biography Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent indicated that the film grossed $5,641,711, with a net profit of $2,455,570. Hayward was entitled to 37% of the film's overall profit.

Reception

Upon release, I Want to Live! was met with a largely favorable critical response, with many critics heralding the film as an "indictment against capital punishment," citing its clinical, harrowing depiction of execution. Producer Walter Wanger received numerous congratulatory letters praising the film after its release, including those from writers Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Leon Uris and Albert Camus, all of whom were ardent opponents of capital punishment.

Susan Hayward received acclaim for her performance. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: "Miss Hayward plays it superbly, under the consistently sharp direction of Robert Wise, who has shown here a stunning mastery of the staccato realistic style. From a loose and wise-cracking B-girl she moves onto levels of cold disdain and then plunges down to depths of terror and bleak surrender as she reaches the end. Except that the role does not present us a precisely pretty character, its performance merits for Miss Hayward the most respectful applause." Crowther later listed the film as among the top ten best of 1958.

Variety positively wrote: "It is hard to think of any other star except Miss Hayward who could bring off this complex characterization. She gives a performance that undoubtedly will return her, after a recent hiatus, to the top of popular and critical lists." Harrison's Reports wrote the film was a "grim but powerfully gripping drama" and felt Hayward was "nothing short of superb, and her performance should make her a leading contender for this year's Academy Award." John L. Scott of the Los Angeles Times felt Hayward gave "a sensational, nerve-shattering performance in the new feature as the complex central character. Certainly this portrayal is worthy of Academy Award consideration." To the contrary, John McCarten of The New Yorker wrote Hayward "is as defiant as she can be, but the brittle, wisecracking dialogue she has been provided with soon gets monotonous, and she never does establish Mrs. Graham as a plausible character."

On the film's depiction of capital punishment, Variety called I Want to Live! "probably the most damning indictment of capital punishment ever documented in any media." Time magazine observed more critically: "The heroine, according to the script, is not punished for something she did, but for something she did not do. Is it an attack on the practice of capital punishment? Possibly. But the script spends no sympathy on the two men convicted as the heroine's accomplices, who meet the same fate as she does. Well then, what is it?" McCarten wrote the film was "morbidly engrossing", but "when the last legal maneuver has failed and the horrifying business is done, the film turns out to have no content beyond its shocking documentary review of the way capital punishment is meted out."

Awards and nominations

Home media

MGM Home Entertainment released I Want to Live! on DVD on May 7, 2002. Kino Lorber reissued the film on DVD featuring a restored print in October 2015. In November 2016, Twilight Time released the film on Blu-ray disc in a limited edition of 3,000 units.

Adaptation

I Want to Live! was remade for television in 1983. The television film features Lindsay Wagner, Martin Balsam, Pamela Reed, Harry Dean Stanton, Dana Elcar, Ellen Geer, Robert Ginty and Barry Primus.