Rent I Want to Live! (1958)

Protest Film. - I Want to Live! review by Steve

Robert Wise's polemic against capital punishment is based on the real life case of Barbara Graham who was executed in San Quentin in 1955 on unreliable evidence. It's a procedural film which explains how the prisoner is processed from her conviction, all the way to the death penalty. The system is characterised as barbaric and legally hazardous.    

The story casts doubt on her guilt and argues that she was ill-used by a defective judiciary and the parasitic media. It was based on Graham's letters, and articles by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who initially condemned her, but eventually tried to save her from the gas chamber.

Graham was a prostitute with a history of petty crime. She lies by reflex. She is also represented as an affectionate mother who a victim of domestic abuse. Susan Hayward- one of the very best dramatic actors of the fifties- is superb as the complex, condemned woman. 

Wise actually puts us inside the gas chamber with Graham, trapped within the voyeuristic gaze of the press and representatives of law and order. The film makes a powerful case (though has been criticised for altering facts) but it's Hayward's intense, kinetic performance that ultimately dominates.