Factual story based on the story by Ed Montgomery and the letters of Barbara Graham. Produced by Walter Wanger and directed by Robert Wise. Main characters:

Susan Hayward as Barbara Graham

Simon Oakland as Ed Montgomery

Theodore Bikell as Carl Palmberg

Virginia Vincent as Peg

Wesley Lau as Henry Graham

Opening scene is a jazz combo playing in a club. Tilted camera angles, men passing a joint around. It's in Las Vegas? (Why not the Coast?) Susan Hayward is in bed in her slip smoking. Police knock on the door. They want to arrest her male companion for violating the Mann Act--transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. But she says she rented the room--so she's arrested for prostitution instead. The man goes free; he thanks her. "Get your paws off," she tells the cop. "I soil easy."

Later Barbara and her friend Peg are partying with a bunch of sailors. Barbara is kissing a young sailor. She tells him about a fantasy trip with her mother on a yacht; she has a lot of fantasies about a perfect life. Two old pals show up; they want an alibi for a robbery they've done. Barbara is easily convinced to go along; Peg refuses to get involved. Barbara then dances to a wild bongo beat.

The outcome must be unsuccessful: "Barbara Wood Gets Year for Perjury," the headline says. She gets out, facing five more years on probation. She has several priors for vagrancy and two years in Ventura--the girls' reform school. "My mother was in Ventura before me," she says. The matron tells her to try a different way. Barbara tells the matron maybe she will.

Next we see her writing a bad check to a vice cop in a bar. The bartender tips her and gets her a job working for his boss. She's a hustler, getting drunks to buy her drinks, playing poker, driving the getaway car and shooting dice--the dice-throwing motion becomes her trademark way of making a difficult decision. She gets paid off one day, $642, and tells her boss she's quitting to get married to the bartender, Hank Graham. She wants to go straight; she's envying the housewives shopping. Perkins knocks down the house of cards. (18:30)

Next scene: her drug addict husband is trying to take her last ten dollars. Their baby boy is crying. Hank needs a fix. They fight. She gives him the money and tells him she's through. "It's the last you'll ever get from me." Hank takes the money and leaves.

Newspaper headlines: "Monahan Murdered." Barbara is at home when the landlord comes by with a bad check she wrote. She promises to pay tomorrow. She goes back to see her old boss, Perkins, who is about to hit the road with Santo; police are apparently after them, for reasons we don't know. Another low-life (Bruce King) tries to get her to go to Acapulco with him. When she says she's not his type, he replies, "I heard there was no such thing as not your type."

Barbara leaves Bobby, her son, with Hank's mother, taking his toy tiger with her. When she gets on a bus, the cops are after her. A woman undercover is following her. The police are closing in, accompanied by Ed Montgomery, the reporter.

Her two companions are listening to news reports of the Monahan murder, eleven days before. Bruce King has been picked up on the Mexican border. (How did police get tipped to these two?) The Los Angeles police call for them to come out, one-by-one:

Emmett Perkins

John R. Santo

Barbara Graham

Santo belts Barbara around for leading police back to them. She fixes her hair, cleans her face and goes out to the police. The other two have surrendered. A huge crowd has gathered: it's like being on a stage, and she's always ready to perform. Spotlight on her, she snarls at Montgomery and holds up the tiger. "Bloody Babs," he labels her.

Police are questioning her (33:30). They ask her about the Mabel Monahan murder. She denies knowing her. They offer her a fix. "You cooperate, maybe we could let you have a fix." "There's no monkey on my back, never has been." The police get more frustrated because she's not intimidated: "Lousy, hop-headed slut," one of the cops calls her. Another offers her freedom if she names names. She declines. "No dice."

The reporter, Montgomery, says he's going to play up her involvement in the crime, and downplay the others. "Titian-topped tigress." She is given a shower and inspected for injuries by a curious matron.

Barbara is booked into the jail (38:00). Her cellie is very interested in the details of her charge. Barbara gets a subpoena to appear before the grand jury. She goes crazy in jail and shouts she knows nothing about murder. She is indicted for the murder of Mabel Monahan, along with the three men.

Her old friend Peg comes to see her in jail. Peg is married with two kids. Her life is different; her husband knows about her old party-girl days. She knows Barbara didn't do the crime. Barbara wishes she could have read the handwriting on the wall--changed her life.

Her attorney, Richard Tibrow, meets with her. She has an uncorroborated alibi, because her husband can't be found, and Bruce King is saying she did the actual killing.

Rita, another inmate, sees a letter from the lawyer. She offers to set up an alibi with Ben, her friend. Barbara is skeptical, but she is desperate. She meets with Ben and concocts a cover story. He pressures her into admitting that she was there with the others, and she finally makes an ambiguous admission of guilt, under duress, when it appears he won't testify for her otherwise.

The date of the crime was March 9, 1953. At the trial, Bruce King testifies that Barbara Graham struck the old woman with a pistol in her right hand. King has been granted immunity for his testimony.

The press are calling Graham "Queen of the Murder Mob." The trial is getting nationwide attention. Montgomery tries to interview her, but she snubs him: "Bloody Babs Shuns Press," she gives him the headline.

Then Ben Miranda turns up to testify for the state. Her attorney tries to withdraw, claiming deception. Miranda taped the interview in jail, and it's played in court. She is crying as she leaves court, but she swears she's innocent. Rita is turned loose on probation for her cooperation.

Barbara testifies. The prosecutor produces a letter she wrote Hank. Suddenly Hank is brought into the courtroom. Why did she confess to Miranda: "I was desperate. I thought I was going to the gas chamber." (1:02:00) What crime had she been convicted of most recently? "Perjury."

The LA Chronicle says: "Henry No Help on Stand." "Babs' Hubby Last Witness, Has Foggy Day in Court." She is convicted with the other two; Bruce King goes free. "Barbara Guilty," LA Dispatch says.

She gets to see her son, but the press attends, and she leaves angrily in response to a question about how it feels to be facing the gas chamber. She is formally sentenced to death (1:06:50). She invites the press to her execution. "You led the pack, Montgomery. Are you satisfied now?"

Barbara is transported to the women's prison at Corona. They call it a campus. An inmate recognizes her: BMOC. She is put in isolation because of her death sentence. She listens to jazz in her cell. She tries to sleep in a black nightie. The jailers tell her it's too provocative. She refuses to were the jail nightgown. She strips off the black one and throws it at the matron: "I'll sleep raw."

A psychologist/criminologist, Carl Palmberg, comes to see her. He gives her the Rohrsach test. Afterward he tells Montgomery and the lawyer he thinks she's innocent. Why? "She has a positive aversion to violence." Plus she is left-handed, and King said she held the gun in her right hand. Palmberg's theory is that Santo and Perkins want her to be commuted, so they will be also.

Lawyer Al Matthews is handling the appeal. Montgomery has changed sides. He's now writing sympathetic stories about her. Palmberg is organizing the effort to get Barbara's death sentence commuted.

Palmberg comes to visit Corona as she is in the dentist's chair. Her appeal has been denied, he tells her. The execution is set for December 3. (1:18:00) She says she doesn't want a stay if she can't get a commutation. She can't stand it any more. The dentist's chair is like a rehearsal for the gas chamber.

Overhead shot of her sleeping in bed: she's having bad dreams. Peg brings Bobby to see her, with four days left. She play a bouncy game with him, until she breaks down. The matron comes in to say the U.S. Supreme Court has granted a stay.

She writes Carl a letter in the hospital: she has decided she wants to live, and Carl is her greatest hope. But Carl dies, and takes his investigative work with him. Montgomery comes to tell her: the U.S. Supreme Court has turned her down. Montgomery tells her about the press campaign to save her: "win or lose I sell a lot of papers."

The triple execution is scheduled for June 3, 1955. The day before she is taken to San Quentin (1:25:30). Montgomery wants to see Perkins, who refuses. The warden won't let Montgomery in. The guard from Corona signs her over on the Death Watch Log. She's put in the holding cell to wait, watched by a nurse, and a matron who tells her, "This isn't a garden party. Barbara refuses to submit to the required search. "What can anyone threaten me with now?"

The warden comes to see her: "Just hope for the best." "Don't forget to call me at 10:00," she quips. She gets out her pajamas--flaming scarlet.

The gas chamber is revealed (1:31:10), dramatically, with a curtain falling. Technicians are at work mixing chemicals.

They bring a big tray of food up. She sends it away. The priest comes to visit her. She's says she's not afraid: she wants to see Mrs. Monahan, who knows she's innocent. The priest gives her a St. Jude medal, saint of the impossible, or lost causes. She goes to confession.

The radio says four couples are waiting to adopt her son, which upsets her. Bobby is to remain with his grandmother. Lawyer Matthews arrives to say the appeal is going on. "Don't beg for my life," she orders him, though anything in the courts is okay. They want Perkins and Santo to go first, hoping they'll break down.

The nurse Barbara sits up all night with Barbara Graham, who tells her how nice and important her husband Henry was, a respected bank official--all lies. She has her fantasy husband.

The two executioners arrive. They check the phone lines, the clock--three seconds slow. Then they make a bag of cyanide pellets. The test of the chamber works fine. They are meticulous in their preparations.

The phone rings on Death Row. The governor has granted a brief stay, so her lawyer can get to court. They sit around and wait, very nervously. Barbara keeps touching her St. Jude medal. The stay is vacated; the execution time is reset for 10:45.

Barbara dresses in her scarlet suit for the execution. "A pair of fake earrings, that's all I wound up with," she says. She gives Bobby's tiger to Nurse Barbara. The doctor rigs her up in her stethoscope harness, the tube sticking through the front.

They come to get her. "It's time." (1:52:00) Another phone call, as she looks into the gas chamber: another writ filed. Barbara waits, fingering her new medal. The final call comes. The execution is back on: set it for 11:30, the warden says. She wants a mask, so she won't see the people looking at her. The matron provides her own black sleep mask. They lead her to the chamber, the priest putting her heel back on when it comes off.

Barbara is placed in the chair in the gas chamber. (1:56:40) The guard tells her, "When you hear the pellets drop, count ten, take a deep breath. It's easier that way." "How do you know?" she responds.

The technicians do their work. The pellets are dropped into their sulfuric acid bath. We see Barbara's head drop forward and back, and finally her hands relax.

In the parking lot outside, Matthews delivers a final letter to Ed Montgomery. She thanks him for all he did for her. People walk out. The cars leave the parking lot. Montgomery disconnects his hearing aid so he won't hear the noise. Jazz music plays over the credits. (2:02:15)