I Want to Live! (1958)

This seems like a documentary film and is so powerful and persuasive that all the viewers would be forced to concentrate on it. Susan Hayward, a Hollywood actor out of Hollywood actors, is never trying to act well, but only "exists" in the film. She really deserved an Oscar of this year. All the other supporting actors are so real that they do not look like actors. Thus this film looks so contemporary that we cannot believe it was shot 50 years ago. Whether the ending is happy or not, such method of filming gives us a strong impression which lasts for a long time. I adore this film, which must be one of the best Robert Wise films, and it is a pity that relatively few people have seen it. I would be most delighted to advise all my friends and acquaintances to see it.

Fmovies: I surely hope someone somewhere can retrieve the great night Susan Hayward won her Oscar...I recall Kim Novak and James Cagney presenting the Oscar with Kim Novak in her fabulous voice asking Mr. Cagney to "hurry up" when he sliced open the envelope, as Cagney saying "And the Winner is Susan Hayward for "I Want To Live". Thunderous applause and Susan Hayward was in fact called back for a curtain call. Has that ever happened before or since? ( It was no easy win for Susan Hayward was competing with Four fine actresses Liz Taylor, Roz Russell, Deborah Kerr and Shirley MacLaine all in well regarded performances)

I cannot imagine any actress other than Susan Hayward in this part. Robert Wise expert direction creates enormous tension as we know that Susan's character is going to die in the gas chamber.

Susan Hayward, Robert Wise, Producer Walter Wanger, and cinematographer Lionel Linden deserve great applause for their fine work. Filmed at Goldwyn Studio not Susan Hayward's home studio 20th, I always felt this gave her both more freedom to lose some of her famous 'on camera tricks' and experiment more, and also sans Hayward's usual crew she may have felt more vulnerable..whatever Hayward's performance is a wonder and all actors and actresses should study Susan Hayward's fine work in this film.

Robert Osborne on TCM praises this performance as one especially noteworthy in the history of female film acting. Ms. Hayward won the New York Film Critics and Golden Globe Awards prior to her great Oscar win.

Ms. Hayward died nearly 40 years ago yet Ms. Hayward's work remains topical and powerfully moving. Few could show the agony of a woman the way Ms. Hayward could. Her death at a relatively early age deprived us of many more performances from an Artist noted for brilliant work.

I Want to Live was a film from it's inception was guaranteed to create controversy. There are all kinds of opinions about the death penalty and it's application all over the world. Barbara Graham's story, so fresh in the minds of the movie going public in 1958, was going to be a source of controversy.

Did she actually kill the widow Monahan? The film cleverly sidesteps that issue in the screenplay. What exactly was Graham's role in the botched robbery? All the people who could actually tell us are dead. Should a woman be subject to capital punishment. Ethel Rosenberg went to the electric chair on less evidence than Graham and for a crime that was not a homicide.

But all these questions aside, there is one absolute in this film. Susan Hayward gave a performance that must have been inspired by the angels. From the first half of the film dealing with her early life, the homicide she was charged with until the second half covering her sentence and her attempts to avoid the gas chamber, Hayward will keep you glued to your seat.

I can't imagine another actress in this part. She of course was the Best Actress for 1958, but in my lifetime only Hillary Swank in her role in Boys Don't Cry was the Oscar ever conceded before the envelope was opened at the ceremony. EVERYONE knew that both Hayward and Swank were winners going in, that's how good both of them were.

Susan Hayward was simply the best at her job. She had a number of great parts in Fifties and a few clinkers at the height of her career. But to get the Oscar for the part that was her signature role, made the ceremonies in 1959 a great occasion.

She's got a good cast of supporting players in I Want to Live, Simon Oakland, Theodore Bikel, Wesley Lau, Phillip Coolidge. But it is Hayward's film totally.

A part like Barbara Graham given to an actress like Susan Hayward only comes along once or twice in a lifetime. Don't miss this one, however you feel about capital punishment.

I Want to Live! fmovies. Good cinema has rhythm. Most classic cinema moves to the flow of orchestral film music, but for a certain kind of picture in the mid-50s to mid-60s, the images would skip to the modish sounds of bossa nova and free jazz. This isn't the most melodic or listenable music ever created, and often it was used simply to be hip and different. However, I Want to Live! has a jazz score that runs right through the picture, regulating its pace and complementing its relentlessly gritty tone.

The picture opens in a jazz club, in a short sequence which has nothing to do with the plot, but sets the scene. From this point on, a musical feel pervades the picture. The director is Robert Wise, an exceptional but seldom recognised filmmaker whose pictures had always been sensitive to rhythm, and would later win Oscars for directing musicals. Wise was an expert when it came to matching music, image and performance. In an early scene with a party aboard a boat, we hear some staccato Latin American music. The frame seems excessively crowded and filled with movement, while the lighting gives numerous shades of grey. The whole thing appears natural, but also looks precisely choreographed to the rhythm of the scene. At other times we get a slow, moody melody, and here the tones are stark and the movements lethargic. Even in scenes without music, there is a complex and eerie sound design of closing doors, photographers' flashes, telephone rings and suchlike, not to mention the sharp vocal delivery. This rhythmic approach, which is always present but never seems overdone, adds character to each moment, gives abrupt changes between scenes, and makes the whole picture fast-moving. Some commentators on Wise's career try to draw a line separating films like this from West Side Story, Sound of Music and so forth, but Wise's style and intention is consistent.

But the central pillar in I Want to Live! is of course the captivating performance of Susan Hayward. Hayward's acting is the size of a house, and she absolutely dominates the screen. However it is the littlest things that make this performance work – a tiny flash of her eyes or shrug of her shoulders. These small things are what bring out our sympathy for the character, while it is the powerhouse acting that gives the picture its passion. So overpowering is Hayward, that every other performance becomes somewhat forgettable. Except that is for Simon Oakland, who is rather impressive in his film debut, with a role which is complex because there is often a discrepancy between what his character says and what he is really feeling. Lou Krugman is also very memorable in his small role as Jack Santo, simply because he comes across as genuinely menacing and sadistic. No-one else really stands out, but at least no-one is conspicuously bad, and besides it helps to have a supporting cast that is a little bland because you would not want anyone to upstage Hayward.

We will never know for sure, but it is now widely agreed that the real Barbara Graham was in fact guilty, and while this movie never openly commits itself either way, it makes every allowance for the likelihood of her being innocent. However, the point of I Want to Live! was probably not to exonerate Barbara Graham, it was instead to demonstrate the horror and inhumanity of the death penalty. What matters is that we are convinced of the humanity of the character, and the desolateness of the situation. The ins and outs of the case are never really clearly defined, whereas the tone and force of the picture most definite

Filmed in stark black and white as I think all films of this nature should be, one sees the stark realism unfold of a woman's already messed up and sad life become a pitiful situation of which there isn't a return. One of America's real true tragedies where a woman is used as a pawn by the judicial system so that the State of California can really punish those that should have been and were punished. If it weren't for Barbara Graham's final outcome, the bad guys would still be alive today. If you are like me and love criminology and hate injustice, you must see this picture. Susan Hayward gave the performance of a lifetime and deservedly won the Oscar for best actress. The piece has this blues/jazzy type of music in the background which I think makes the film more realistic because it was the type of music that Barbara Graham loved. Do yourself a favor and see this one.

Whether Barbara Graham was really framed for murder or not is never really the point of this melodramatic look at a woman on death row, played to the hilt by SUSAN HAYWARD in one of her gutsiest performances. The main point seems to be showing us what a devastating time any prisoner on death row has while waiting for that execution to proceed. And in this, Robert Wise succeeds with his powerful film about the accused murderess Barbara Graham.

That Hayward can actually make us feel sympathy for her character when she's depicted as a tough-talking, bitter dame who takes no nonsense from anyone (even those trying to help her), is a credit her talent as an actress who never tries to soften her portrayal of the party girl paying for a life of petty crimes that may include murder.

SIMON OAKLAND as a reporter who begins to have doubts about her guilt, is excellent. There's an almost documentary feel to the whole film and this is partly due to the uniform excellence of the entire cast, all of whom come across as real people. But the main credit must be given to director Robert Wise who does a fine job with some truly harsh material.

The jazz score background effectively balances the look and feel of the story. Well worth watching as an inside look at how justice sometimes works, while raising questions in the viewer's mind as to Graham's guilt or innocence.