Prior to watching I Want to Live! I knew Susan Hayward best from supporting roles in films such as Beau Geste and I Married a Witch - in which she was perfectly adequate, but never really given much of a chance to shine.

Here however, as a woman of 'dubious character' who becomes involved with a murderer and winds up on trial for the crime herself, she is terrific, a bold and daring performance which eats up the screen. The film, always compelling, is a little lurid, a little too obviously 'ripped from the headlines'. But Hayward keeps it gripping throughout. A very well-deserved Oscar win.