I WANT TO LIVE is a 1958 film directed by Robert Wise and starring Susan Hayward, in an Oscar performance, as Barbara Graham, a prostitute convicted of murder and awaiting execution. Susan Hayward seems to be largely forgotten today but in the late fifties and early sixties, she was quite a hot commodity. I haven't seen this in years but it was mesmerizing in my youth. For more forgotten movies check with Todd Mason.
11 comments:
I haven't seen this one in a long time, but I believe they falsely give the impression that Graham was innocent. She wasn't.
Hayward was another tough broad from Brooklyn like Barbara Stanwyck, who was ten years her senior.
Of the two I prefer Stanwyck.
Jeff M.
Stanwyck may well be the most versatile actress ever.
I haven't seen I WANT TO LIVE, but I'll track it down. When I clicked on your TODD MASON link it took me to a strange place.
Well, like fellow Susan, Strasberg, a few years later (to say nothing of Tyrell), she was seen later as a bit of a ham...excessively emotive if not energetic Susans...
But, George, isn't that Usually the case? (Well, I guess SWEET FREEDOM isn't That strange.)
--TM between tasks...
I like Hayward in her westerns. In that genre, she was all herself and nobody else.
I'm not sure if I saw any of them. Will have to go look.
GARDEN OF EVIL was a good one, a Hayward western with Gary Cooper and Richard Widmark.
I didn't like this film even if Hayward did win an Oscar. But I did like her in the Jane Froman biopic. In the end she got to marry Rory Calhoun who played, I think, a pilot.
Yeah, she was sort of a hambone, but very much of her time.
I've always liked her, but Garden of Evil, despite a stellar cast and stunning scenery, was a real yawn, IMHO.
This was the one with the gas chamber scene ... I remember it vividly. Films with scenes that depict capital punishment always stick with me.
I remember that last scene, where the defense attorney goes outside and turns off his hearing aid and there is absolute silence.
Hayward was great as tough-talking dames who'd been around the block a few times. Who can forget her scene with Patty Duke in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: "Broadway doesn't go for booze and it doesn't go for dope!"
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