This 1958 film noir is an Academy Award winner for Best Actress. It is a depiction of journalistic investigative word of one Ed Montgomery, a hearing aid wearing journalist. It queries the rationale of institutional approved murder (gas chamber death penalty) for a person who is wrongly accused of murder of a person where she was no party of. Susan Hayward plays the part of a Barbara Graham, a party girl with loose morals who would just lie in court for the kick of it.

Having heaps of financial problems due to a gambling husband, a hungry infant and finding it hard to get a job after her perjury charge, she mixes with the wrong 'friends' and finds herself behind bars for murder. She goes deeper into the quicksand of self destruction after her 'accomplices' sold her out for a plea bargain and the police trap her with a phony alibi.
By the time she realizes that she is in trouble deep, all her avenues for freedom are closed. She is finally executed. The movie ends with all the vehicles of people who witnessed the execution leaving the penitentiary as if feeling satisfied (a job well done) that justice is served. We, the audience, are left with the conundrum - can justice ever be served on earth?
By the time she realizes that she is in trouble deep, all her avenues for freedom are closed. She is finally executed. The movie ends with all the vehicles of people who witnessed the execution leaving the penitentiary as if feeling satisfied (a job well done) that justice is served. We, the audience, are left with the conundrum - can justice ever be served on earth?
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