I Want to Live!
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Movie Reviews of I Want to Live!
Movie Review: She Wanted an Oscar! (And She Got It, Too!)
Summary: 5 Stars
Susan Hayward made no bones about her career goals. She had come to Hollywood in the late 1930's not to become "just" an Actress, but a Star. It took a few hard years of playing supporting roles and minor leads, but eventually her talent and determination won out, and she broke through the ranks and achieved her goal. Having reached the top, she set her sights even higher, stating clearly that she was focused on winning an Academy Award. Her first nomination came in 1947 for the hard-hitting drama "Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman", but she lost to Loretta Young in "The Farmer's Daughter". Hayward would rack up three more nominations (for "My Foolish Heart" in 1949; "With a Song In My Heart" in 1952; and "I'll Cry Tomorrow" in 1955) before she finally hit Oscar paydirt in 1958 with "I Want to Live!""I Want to Live!" tells the story of Barbara Graham, a wild party girl with a rap sheet a mile long who was convicted of murder in the early 1950's and executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin Penitentiary. The script whitewashes Graham's story, painting her as a more sympathetic character (i.e., "innocent") than she had been in real life, but Hayward comes through with a gutsy tour de force performance that provides the film with just the right amount of gritty toughness that elevates it out of the league of soap opera. Her Barbara Graham may be a "victim" of circumstances and a flawed legal system, but she is also loud, vulgar, crude, flippant, and antisocial, often working against her own best interests. And Hayward never hits a false note, provoking the audience to a strange mixture of contempt and compassion, repulsion and attraction. By the final scenes of the film, when Graham is at San Quentin with execution imminent, Hayward is able to gear down and underplay; she's done such a masterful job with her character thus far that the audience feels - and doesn't really need to see or hear - the turmoil within Graham as she resigns herself to her inevitable fate. It's a bravura piece of acting, and Hayward richly deserved the Oscar she won.
The DVD is amazingly clear and sharp. The black and white cinematography is brilliant; the shadows in some of the San Quentin sequences - especially those in which the death chamber is readied - are startling. And the film-to-video transfer is flawless; watching on a large screen TV, I could actually see the freckles on Miss Hayward's collarbone and define the ridges on her fingernails in some of the final closeup shots. Happily, the Original Theatrical Trailer is included on the disc; what a shocker it must have been to movie-goers at the time since it includes the famous scene of Hayward being led back to her prison cell repeatedly screaming the profanity that Rhett Butler almost didn't get to utter on screen less than 20 years earlier! Definitely a must-have DVD for fans of great screen acting ...
Movie Review: Excellent fare written to showcase the lovely Miss Hayward
Summary: 5 Stars
Susan Hayward was one of the best actresses ever. I just love to watch her. The only real talent to come after her was Faye Dunaway. Anyway, "I Want to Live!" was Hollywood's scathing indictment of the death penalty and is the film for which Susan Hayward is best remembered. It is her Oscar-winning performance. Frankly, I liked her a lot better in "I'll Cry Tomorrow" "Smash Up: The Story of a Woman" and "With a Song in My Heart." I thought she was much better in those, but the Oscar had eluded her, so they wrote this screenplay full of plenty of dramatic scenes to get her the Oscar she rightfully deserved. It worked. The dialog and plot are excellent and her scenes as the condemned woman hours from execution are still extremely powerful today. In some ways, Susan Hayward was at her very best, and with the perfect script, a rare combination. You still sit there rooting for her to get that stay of execution in the movie, the movie grabs you that much. I've watched this film about 10 times, she never gets the stay, but the situations are so real, you root for one every time.
The only thing that to me does not make this Miss Hayward's best role (apart from maybe a handful of scenes) is that Barbara Graham, the real-life death-row inmate portrayed here, was a low-budget, crude, herion addict who got along by using men, doing petty thefts and sometimes being a prostitute, and I don't mean the $100 an hour ones that come to your hotel room. We're talking low-class street woman. Miss Hayward is nothing of the kind, she doesn't have that look or manner. Though the prison and death penalty scenes and themes are excellently and realistically portrayed here, you feel like you're watching a wrongfully-convicted society woman, nun, or school teacher getting the gas chamber, not a two-bit street prostitute/heroine junkie/thief. I don't think this necessarily takes away from the movie much or how it grips you, but for this reason, I'm not sure I would rate this the best of Susan Hayward. The Oscar was righting previous wrongs, in my opinion.
I highly recommend this film, and if you like it, try some of Susan Hayward's other films. She was really outstanding!
Movie Review: Hayward's Triumph
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the best of the 50s "issue" dramas, and it contains Susan Hayward's finest performance. The debate over the film's interpretation of Barbara Graham's innocence or guilt has always been controversial, but it in no way reduces this film's entertainment value. Robert Wise directs it with stark, briskly paced attention to detail, and the performances are uniformly vivid and realistic. The screenplay is both intelligent and clever, with the spicy, charged dialogue practically spilling off the screen. Unfortunately, no character registers with substantial impact other than Hayward's star turn, but that seems to have been the filmmakers' intent. This makes it a bit hard to fully appreciate the impact Barbara Graham's social milieu had on her fate. Still, the film is never less than riveting and Hayward pulls out all the stops. At times, she does seem awfully aware that a camera is trained on her, much in the way classic Hollywood stars always were in those days. At other times, however, she allows herself a level of emotional honesty rare on the 50s screen, and she lets Graham's rough-and-tumble nature spew out in fearless fashion. This is both a calculated and spontaneously raw performance, which is curiously contradictory, but an accurate description of Hayward's dychotomous acting style. Her worst tendencies, posing or eyes on the horizon optimism with an all-Hollywood gleam in her eye, are rarely evident here, replaced by a raw energy and gutsy emotionalism that few actresses could muster. The final scenes on death row are deservedly remembered for their shattering effectiveness. They denounce the concept of the death penalty as no politicizing could ever do. This well edited film is not easy viewing, but it's worthwhile and challenging. "I Want to Live!" deserves its classic status. Rediscover Susan Hayward in all her glory.Movie Review: "Get your paws off! I soil easy!"
Summary: 5 Stars
So says fifties "Goodtime Girl" Barbara Graham to one of her sleazy male companions in this true story of Graham's ultimate frame-up and execution for a murder she didn't commit. Susan Hayward won an Oscar for her brilliant portrayal of of party girl Graham. Here we see film noir, the marginalized fifties' film genre, enter into the Hollywood mainstream. Director Robert Wise uses harrowing black and white cinematography and a jagged, jazz-oriented musical score to emphasize Graham's isolation from the larger society. Graham was a petty criminal and an assertive, tough woman who had to fend for herself. When one of her accomplices asks her, "whaddayado?" she answers truthfully--"I do what I have to." This 1958 film, which calls into question the "justice" in the criminal justice system, looks ahead to the social upheaval of the sixties when the both the antiwar and the civil rights movement would put America on the carpet. The film also, in the figure of reporter Ed Montgomery, shows how her case became a media juggernaut that became impossible to stop, even when her innocence became evident. Graham's absolute powerlessness in the film reminds reminds us how little power women had in the male-dominated postwar era. Hayward was an amazingly talented, instinctual actress--and perfect for this role. Graham wasn't an introspective woman and Hayward wasn't an introspective actress. Hayward was on Graham's wavelength, so to speak, and her performance here is uncanny. This film is definitely an American classic.Movie Review: Unforgettable Susan Hayward.... and Robert Wise
Summary: 5 Stars
Susan Hayward was and still remains one of the most enduring Hollywood actresses of her era.
In "I want to live" she is no less than extraordinary, extremely moving,irritating,horrible,beautiful.....
Under the brilliant direction of classic director Robert Wise, she and the supporting players have acted a true classic.
I don't want to forget to mention the riveting music score which accompanies each step of the story.
Wether the story is accurate or not is secondary.The monstruous cruelty of death penalty (wether one is guilty or not) is the issue.
The film shows what human nature is ....in all its aspects.It is a thrilling experience, harrowing.
You 'll never forget the face of Susan Hayward in the last 20 minutes of the movie.It 's ALL in her face, hope,despair,anger,torture,relief,resignation,revolt,denial,...hope again,fight ...life...death.
If what she does is "overacting" according to some revieuwers here,then I like overacting...
She IS the real life....and the real life is mostly rougher than film...
The face of Susan Hayward in "I want to live".... will live on and on and on.