I want to Live! - 1958 ****

A stunning performance from Susan Hayward as the convicted murderess Barbara Graham whose 1955 trial and eventual execution ruled the tabloids. I don't know much about Graham but Hayward's portrayal of her suggests a damaged and misunderstood woman who gets mistreated and abused by almost every man she comes into contact with to the extent that she is accused of a crime she did not commit.

In reality I suspect Graham was a hard and cold woman who enjoyed using people and relished the idea of being spoilt rotten by all her numbers of male admirers. She was certainly attractive, and easy, therefore many men wanted be by her side, but weren't interested when they found out that she had a child. In the film she is shown to be devoted to her son, but in real life she wasn't particularly keen on being a mother, and tended to disregard her son in favour of male attention.

Her execution is a very difficult scene to watch, as well as the scenes leading up to it, where she becomes resigned to her fate but at the same time has a slight glimmer of hope still inside. We will never know for sure whether Graham commited murder or not, but Hayward certainly does a good job of playing the innocent victim. A must see.