| I Want to Live! | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Robert Wise |
| Produced by | Claude Miller Marcel Berbert |
| Written by | Screenplay: Nelson Gidding Don Mankiewicz Articles: Ed Montgomery Letters: Barbara Graham |
| Starring | Susan Hayward Simon Oakland Virginia Vincent Theodore Bikel |
| Music by | Johnny Mandel |
| Cinematography | Lionel Lindon |
| Editing by | William Hornbeck |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | November 18, 1958 |
| Running time | 120 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
I Want to Live! is a 1958 film noir produced by Walter Wanger and directed by Robert Wise which tells the heavily fictionalized story of a woman, Barbara Graham, convicted of murder and facing execution. It stars Susan Hayward as Graham, and also features Simon Oakland, Stafford Repp, and Theodore Bikel. The movie was adapted from letters written by Graham and newspaper articles written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Montgomery.
The film earned Hayward a Best Actress Oscar at the 31st Academy Awards.
Contents |
The film tells the story of the life and execution of Barbara Graham (Hayward) a prostitute, drug addict, and convicted perjurer. Graham is the product of a broken home, and works luring men into fixed card games.
At one point, she attempts to go straight but marries the "wrong man," and has a child.
When her life falls apart, she returns to her former professions and gets involved in a murder. She claims her innocence, but is convicted and executed.
The cast includes:[1]
A prologue and epilogue contributed to the film by Montgomery characterize the film's content — which largely portrays Graham as innocent of the murder — as factual. But there was substantial evidence of Graham's complicity in the crime which included her taped confession to an undercover officer.[2] Hollywood writer Robert Osborne, who later became the host of Turner Classic Movies, interviewed Susan Hayward and asked whether or not she believed Barbara Graham had been innocent. According to Osborne, the actress seemed hesitant to answer at first, but ultimately admitted that her research on the evidence and letters in the case led her to believe that the woman she played in the movie was probably guilty.[3]
When the film was released, Variety gave the film a favorable review: "There is no attempt to gloss the character of Barbara Graham, only an effort to understand it through some fine irony and pathos. She had no hesitation about indulging in any form of crime or vice that promised excitement on her own, rather mean, terms... Hayward brings off this complex characterization. Simon Oakland, as Montgomery, who first crucified Barbara Graham in print and then attempted to undo what he had done, underplays his role with assurance.[4]
Film critic Bosley Crowther liked the film and 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."[1]
Gene Blake, the reporter who covered the actual murder trial for the Los Angeles Daily Mirror, called the movie "a dramatic and eloquent piece of propaganda for the abolition of the death penalty."[5]
In 2009, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that eleven out of eleven reviews of the film were positive. [6]
Wins
Nominations
Two phonograph albums were released, both titled I Want to Live. One, Johnny Mandel's, contained the film score; the other, Gerry Mulligan's, included numerous Mandel-written themes. Allmusic calls Mandel's album "one of the best jazz-inspired soundtracks around"[8] and notes that Mulligan's album "features six themes from the movie (all composed by Johnny Mandel) performed by the same musicians, who this time around get an opportunity to really stretch out."[9] By March 1959, Billboard noted that the popularity of the film and of Mandel's and Mulligan's albums "prompted a rush of jazz film scores", and cited the signing of Duke Ellington to do the score for that year's Anatomy of a Murder, the release of The Five Pennies (a biopic about the jazz band leader Red Nichols), and a 1960 documentary Jazz on a Summer's Day, . [10]
I Want to Live! was remade for television in 1983. It featured Lindsay Wagner, Martin Balsam, Pamela Reed, Harry Dean Stanton, Dana Elcar, Ellen Geer, Robert Ginty and Barry Primus.