FAQ for
I Want to Live! (1958) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

I Want to Live is based on articles written by journalist Ed Montgomery who based his articles on court records, investigative reports, personal interviews, and letters written by principle character Barbara Graham. The screenplay was written by screenwriters Nelson Gidding and Don Mankiewicz. A made-for-TV remake, I Want to Live, was released in 1983.

Californian-born Barbara Graham [1923-1955] was accused, along with two accomplices -- John R. Santo and Emmett Perkins -- of murdering elderly widow Mable Monahan during a robbery attempt. She was convicted and executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin on 3 June 1955. A photo of Graham can be seen here.

It is not the place of an IMDb FAQ page to determine the innocence or guilt of a convicted murderer. In this fictionalized film, Barbara Graham (Susan Hayward) is depicted as innocent of murdering Mable Monahan. The real Barbara Graham also proclaimed her innocence. However, the evidence presented at her trial led jurors to find Graham guilty.

Barbara whispers, "I didn't do it."

Viewers who have enjoyed I Want to Live! recommend two similar movies: Another Life (2001), in which a woman is wrongfully accused of murdering her husband in post-Edwardian England, and Chicago (2002), in which two murderesses fight for their lives on Death Row. In Cell 2455 Death Row (1955), loosely based on the life of Caryl Chessman, a convicted robber and rapist reviews his life while awaiting the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison. Stephen King's The Green Mile (1999) is a fictionalized account of the execution of a gifted black man convicted of the rape and murder of two little girls. Also recommended is Krótki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film about Killing) (1958), a Polish drama that looks critically at a legal system that allows for capital punishment. Although the story doesn't take place on Death Row, Monster (2003) details the story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who was put to death by lethal injection on 9 October 2002.