Barbara Graham is a woman with dubious moral standards, often a guest in seedy bars. She has been sentenced for some petty crimes. Two men she knows murder an older woman. When they get caught they start to think that Barbara has helped the police arresting them. As a revenge they tell the police that Barbara is the murderer.

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Jag vill leva!, Vull viure, Chci žít!, Laßt mich leben, ¡Quiero vivir!, می خواهم زندگی کنم!, Antakaa minun elää!, Je veux vivre, Élni akarok!, Non voglio morire, 나는 살고 싶다, Chcę żyć!, Quero Viver!, Я хочу жить!, 我要活下去

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• What began in noir as implication, ends in a confessional exclamation; “I Want to Live!” Robert Wise was a director who dabbled with exquisite mastery across cinema genres. With noir, he even excelled at working other genres [Western, sports, heist] under its umbrella, all while not leaving any of noir’s necessary stylization and history out in the rain. In “I Want,” Wise steps behind the bar to try his hand at courtroom noir, guiding both genres to the necessary place of change they needed to arrive at in order to endure as art in a rapidly changing America. “I Want” is presented as a hard boiled factual account of a California sex worker condemned to the death penalty in a…
• Based on the true story of Barbara Graham, a frequent criminal and sex worker whose life of crime led to her death in the face of capital punishment. What instantly stands out is Susan Hayward's outstanding performance, an actress who built a reputation for herself in the industry by playing these real-life women. Five of these performances garnered her Oscar nominations, with this picture eventually bringing her the coveted statuette. And I can see why. Hayward does an excellent job of balancing Graham's ferocity while making you feel something close to affection for this woman until the very last moment when you're on the edge of your seat about whatever will happen to her and whether she will walk scott…
• I Want to Live! is a good movie. It tells the story of Barbra Graham [Susan Hayward], a woman who is blamed for many unjust crimes including perjury and murder. As the audience, we are pretty unsure of whether she did it or not, but many hints allow us to feel as if she didn’t. It leads up to some pretty climatic moments, including a perfectly crafted ending that made my heart beat quicker than a drum. The movie also incorporates a lot of jazz music in order to use reverse psychology on what the story is. I do wish that the story was less tedious, but hey nobody’s perfect. Susan Hayward won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance here…
• SOME SPOILERS AHEAD Susan Hayward stars in this biographical noir as Barbara Graham, a low-level criminal convicted of murder fighting against the death penalty sentence she’s been given.
  I Want To Live is a harrowing, utterly compelling retelling of the real life case, exploring how totally one-sided the US legal system really can be for those it believes guilty; portraying police entrapment, inadequate defence and cruel press bandwagoning as part and parcel of a flawed process, the film explores how Graham is pulled through courts and vilified by the media, who latch onto her story and run with it as a way to sell papers. Crucially, the film never…
• Apparently in the 1950s, state execution gas chambers used solid pellets called 'cyanide eggs' to deliver the gas - they show them in the film, being poured from a can with a label so innocent-looking that it might as well have contained green beans. Just saying, Cyanide Eggs would be a pretty rad band name. One of the more interesting indictments of capital punishment, I Want to Live! presents Susan Hayward as Barbara Graham, a woman of loose character who unfortunately finds herself at the wrong end of a prisoner's dilemma, on the stand for murder. The film shows stylish Dutch angles of midcentury nightlife set to jazz music, with a bit of a finger-wagging tone slightly reminiscent of something…
• Part of my 5 Directors x 5 Unseen Films [6] challenge. This film was based upon actual letters penned by Barbara Elaine Wood aka Barbara Graham, who was convicted of murder and executed in the gas chamber of California's San Quentin Prison on June 3, 1955 at the age of 31. The original screenplay by Don Mankiewicz also drew on newspaper articles written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Montgomery for the San Francisco Examiner. However, when Robert Wise was brought on board to direct the production, he insisted on having screenwriter Nelson Gidding re-author the script to make it even more true to the facts. Wise even went so far as to visit the real San Quentin gas chamber and…
• Susan Hayward's Oscar-winning performance as convicted murderer Barbara Graham who was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin three years earlier after a sensationalized trial and lurid media coverage. I hadn't seen this since I was a teenager when I saw it on television. It stayed with me then, and still packs a punch. The film takes the stance that Graham was innocent, which is open to debate. What is true is that she represented a "bad" woman in conservative 1950s America - a sex worker who challenged prevailing gender norms. She lived lived a wild life and got caught up in underworld criminal behavior. This led the press and public to be fascinated by her, naming her Bloody…
• NOIRvember
  Barbara lässt selten etwas anbrennen im Leben. Partys hier, Männerbekanntschaften da. Auf den Mund gefallen ist sie auch nicht und alles lässt sie sich auch nicht gefallen. Auch hat sie kein Problem damit mit dubiosen Gestalten abzuhängen, welche zwielichtige Geschäfte treiben. Wegen Meineid vorbestraft, scheint es das Barbara den Schuss gehört hat und sich bessern will. Sie wird sogar Mutter eines kleinen Sohnes. Blöd nur das sich alte Gewohnheiten und Bekanntschaften schlecht abschütteln lassen, denn plötzlich wird sie wegen Mordes an einer reichen Witwe angeklagt. Belastend in der Sache ist, das sie zwar ein Alibi hat, ihr Morphium-süchtiger Gatte sich aber an nix mehr erinnern kann...
  Mit ordentlich Schmackes, Substanz, aber gleichermassen nüchtern inszeniertes Drama, welches äußerst fragwürdige Methoden…
• Wow!! Talk about earning an Oscar, Susan Hayward EARNT the Oscar she won for this film, damn did she earn it. What a performance, and so well ahead of its time with the themes. This was referenced in a film I saw recently and I had always heard about its reputation as one of the most worthy Best Actress Oscar wins, so going into it I had high hopes and I wasn’t disappointed at all, it was fantastic, so much drama and a truly phenomenal lead performance. The eventual ending is extremely difficult to watch and doesn’t shy away from being in your face at all, which surprised me considering when it was made.
• The Third Summer of Scam You can see how much this film mattered to Robert Wise and Susan Hayward. To this day there is still some doubt cast on Barbara Graham's level of guilt or innocence, but at the same time you can see that Wise was perhaps more focused on the subject of capital punishement and trial by media. Hayward leaves absolutely everything on screen. She must have been exhausted by her efforts here - she's at maximum in every single scene. Her mannerisms and emotions are extraordinary, quite unlike anything I've seen from this era of filmmaking. Their efforts are to their eternal credit and were rewarded with critical acclaim and awards, not least Hayward scooping the Best…
• ☆"Life's a funny thing." "Compared to what?"☆ Film Recommendation

  17 – from RasmusS.

  The wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong company. In some ways the antithesis of the beautiful friendship in last night's recommendation, the woman at the center of Robert Wise's I Want to Live! has her life spiral out of control due to poor choices but also very poor acquaintances. Susan Hayward shines in her Oscar-winning role based on a true story of a habitual criminal facing the death penalty, and as written by Nelson Gidding and Don Mankiewicz we may come to believe she is innocent. That's Barbara Graham, prostitute and petty criminal with a long rap sheet, thinking she can outsmart the feds at every…

In I Want to Live! Robert Wise tells a story of Barbara Graham, a woman who’s sentenced to death for murder along with two other members of her “gang”. The movie advertises itself as a true story, however, a lot of it was fictionalized. I’m only focused on the aspects presented by the movie.

Despite the grim subject matter at first I Want to Live! is in fact quite fast paced and lively. The jazz music, Barbara's snarky comments [plenty of killer lines [no pun intended]] and her love for her son all remind us of the gift that is life. There are struggles and some of it isn’t fun to watch because her life has gone in the wrong…

Was I want to live based on a true story?

In I Want to Live! [1958], a movie based on real events, Hayward portrayed Barbara Graham, a prostitute who was convicted [possibly wrongly] with two companions of having murdered a wealthy widow in 1953 and was executed in the gas chamber. For her moving performance, Hayward finally received an Oscar.

What is the story behind the movie I Want to Live?

Popular on Variety. I Want to Live! is a drama dealing with the last years and the execution of Barbara Graham [Susan Hayward], who was convicted at one time or another of prostitution, perjury, forgery and murder. It is a damning indictment of capital punishment.

How accurate is the movie I Want to Live?

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.

Where was the movie I Want to Live filmed?

Prison scenes were filmed at the real San Quentin State Prison, at San Rafael on I-580 just over the Toll Bridge from Richmond, California. The gas chamber was, however, reconstructed on the soundstage in Hollywood. If you want to visit this notorious facility of San Quentin, there is a San Quentin Prison Museum.