I Want to Live!

Genre: crime drama (in black and white)

With: Susan Hayward (Barbara Graham, a.k.a. Bonnie), Simon Oakland (Edward S. ‟Ed” Montgomery), Virginia Vincent (Peg), Theodore Bikel (Carl G.G. Palmberg), Wesley Lau (Henry Graham), Philip Coolidge (Emmett Perkins), Lou Krugman (John R. ‟Jack” Santo), James Philbrook (Bruce King), Bartlett Robinson (District Attorney Milton), Gage Clarke (Tibrow), Peter Breck (Ben Miranda), Marion Marshall (Rita), Joe De Santis (Matthews)

Director: Robert Wise

Screenplay: Nelson Gidding and Don Mankiewicz (based on Ed Montgomery’s newspaper articles and Barbara Graham’s letters)

Release: 1958

Studio: MGM, Figaro Incorporated, Walter Wanger Productions

Rating: 14A

MBiS score: 8.4/10 

 

It All Comes Back to Haunt You

  

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Story-line: with her friend Peg at her side, good-time girl Barbara Graham lives an exciting, mischievous life soliciting johns, dodging the police, kiting cheques and committing perjury. It seems that even reasonable advice can’t pull her out of the spiral she’s fallen into. Will it ever stop?

Pluses: a remarkable and versatile performance by a dominant Susan Hayward (as the wisecracking, quarrelsome Barbara), an excellent supporting cast, lively, efficient direction, an interesting and intelligent screenplay memorable for its pungent dialogues, surprising twists and striking scenes, useful cinematography, fine production values and a superb musical score played by world-renowned jazzmen.

Minuses: none I can think of.

Comments: it takes a lot of gumption for an actress to play a troublemaking dame who also elicits admiration and Susan Hayward pulled it off so perfectly that she won an Oscar for her turn as a woman who left no man indifferent – even the cynical Montgomery who had seen just about everything as a journalist. I WANT TO LIVE! is an intriguing, true-to-life story about crime, friendship, rebelliousness, sensationalism and betrayal. Moreover, it is a sad spectacle about human behaviour and the concept of justice in our world.  

 

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