John Chard
My heart bleeds for you. How can I help you Inspector, buy a few tickets to the policemen's ball?
Right from the off there's a realistic feel to the film that immediately draws you in. Be it the characters being acted out so deftly, or the whole composition of director Robert Wise's work, it's quite something and sets the viewer up a treat. It somehow manages to put you in there with Barbara Graham so as to make you feel all the emotions that Graham herself feels.
The plot is based around the murky life of Barbara Graham and the subsequent trial that would culminate in her execution, all of which is decidedly dark and troubling. Broken home upbringing (merely alluded to here) right through drugs, perjury, prostitution, shilling, rob...