In Johnny Mandel’s debut film score for I Want To Live featuring Gerry Mulligan’s septet but without Mulligan, jazz becomes an evocation of the good times, says Selwyn Harris

You are about to see a factual story,” claims the introduction to I Want to Live (1958). Yet in actual fact, director Robert Wise’s film, chronicling the events leading up to the execution in 1955 in the San Quentin gas chamber of Barbara Graham, has caused a good deal of controversy for its allegedly skewed take on events.

This is demonstrated, albeit unintentionally, by the brilliant expressionistic vignette that opens the film. It’s your typical seedy 1950s west coast jazz club setting of a young Gerry Mulligan, with his iconic crew cut, soloing on baritone, with either side of him trombonist Frank Rosolino and trumpeter Art Farmer. But the whole scene’s shot at a slant of about 30 degrees as if the screen were tilted slightly. This visual metaphor was most probably devised as an omen for the unsettling course of the narrative to come, but can also be seen as symbolizing the film’s rather slanted perspective. It’s a “version” of the truth in other words, one that comes out in sympathy with the convicted murderess, although commendably doesn’t over-stretch the point that she may have been innocent. Indeed the ambiguity surrounding the case is one of the more rewarding aspects of a film that is otherwise overly faithful to logging events and too melodramatic in tone.

Furthermore, the screenplay, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning news journalist Ed Montgomery (and also based on Graham’s letters) bears an emotional attachment to the case that lacks some credibility. Montgomery seems a character driven by extremes and making a name for himself: his lurid headlines originally condemn Graham, but he afterwards makes a complete u-turn and obsessively champions her cause. The film demonstrates a kind of collusion against Graham of near Kafkaesque proportions by the media and a police force desperate to point the finger.

Nevertheless the film is saved by a finale that delivers a brilliant and deceptively subtle attack on capital punishment. That final half hour is by far the most intensely riveting in the film. In stark detail it demonstrates the clinical and degrading horror of state-sanctioned execution. The actress Susan Hayward won an Oscar for her portrayal of Graham. In spite of over playing the “victim” role, she nevertheless manages to bring out quirky character traits while her lightning-tongued ripostes are delivered with sassy venom.

Back to the opening sequence and we see an undercover narc sniffing around the jazz club before the camera pans onto the street, craning up to the hotel room above. We can hear Art Farmer blowing airily through the floorboards following Mulligan’s bustling solo, as Barbara Graham smokes a post-coital cigarette in a darkened bedroom. Graham was a big Gerry Mulligan fan in real life. Besides being a sassy blend of super-tough cookie and glamorous good-time dame, Graham was also a hep 1950s beat girl. Johnny Mandel’s debut film score illustrates her love of jazz from the west coast. It was Andre Previn who recommended Mandel to director Wise. Originally a brass player who had performed in the late 1940s with Woody Herman’s Second Herd, Mandel become more in demand through the 1950s for his writing and arranging skills. I Want to Live! raked in six Oscar nominations in all.

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #109 to read the full feature and receive a Free CD subscribe here…