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Pretty Good

best movie i've ever seen.

A lot of fun.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Loved Susan Hayward's work and the famous jazz musicians in the opening scenes. But, you need to read court records and the account of the LAPD lead investigator if you care about what really happened. This movie is largely a fictional account, written and produced by people against capital punishment. Which is fine--we have freedom of speech here. Freedom for Hollywood to pass off fiction as truth, and freedom for me to call them out on it. Two examples of unnecessary fictionalizing in an attempt to gain public sympathy for the anti death penalty movement: 1. She certainly wasn't going to visit her baby when they caught up with her--she was going after a fix. They knew her main drug supplier and had him under surveillance. They followed her back to the hideout from a drug score. 2. When the main LAPD investigator reached the hideout, there was no scene with people and spotlights out in the parking lot. It was a surprise bust--they forced the door and found Barbara and one of the two male gang members naked. Neither one a big deal, bust just examples to show you how full of chit the plot was.

it is her film. a strange film because, without be great, it is more than touching. the story of a prostitute and her guilty. a film about a murder. and about life in a different perspective. Susan Hayward has the huge science to explore each nuance of her character . and this did the film more than one of many sad stories about the waste of life. because it is easy to be prey of melodramatic solutions in this genre of role. it is easy to ignore the limits. or to give to public only a sketch or shadow. and this subtle art to propose a living Barbara Graham, with her superficiality, hopes, courage, fears defines a film who remains, after a half of century, not remarkable but special.

I saw this movie when I was in elementary school and it's clear in my mind to this day. I don't believe I ever saw it again. It is so painful to watch. An attractive, feisty woman, Barbara Graham, is charged and convicted of murder. It is obvious that she has been made a scapegoat for an inconsistent legal system that is under the gun. We often view people on death row with narrowness. This movie, unlike any ever made, gave us a look at a human being, with aspirations, with hopes. The final scenes of the actual execution in the gas chamber should make anyone horrified. We obviously have no consistent criteria for those who live and die. She was not a monster but, despite pleas from every direction, she paid the ultimate price.

Believe me - 1958's "I Want To Live!" is a pretty grim, but, nevertheless, equally powerful "real-life" Drama about party-girl, petty criminal and convicted murderess, Barbara Graham.In 1953 Graham was an accomplice in the senseless robbery and brutal murder of the elderly Mabel Monahan. Eventually found guilty for her part in this crime, Graham was sentenced to execution in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison in 1955. Graham was 31 at the time of her death.Filmed in stark b&w, and masterfully directed by Robert Wise, this picture won actress Susan Hayward an Oscar for "Best Actress".Featuring a moody Jazz score, this is the sort of film that requires the viewer to have nerves of steel, especially during the agonizing moments of its riveting finale.