She subsequently returns to prostitution and other criminal activities to make a living and begins working for thief Emmett Perkins by luring men to his gambling parlor.

Desperate, she leaves Bobby in the care of her mother and returns to working for Emmett, who is now associated with thugs John Santo and Bruce King.

During the interrogation, she is stunned when authorities accuse her of helping Perkins and Santo murder Mabel Monohan, an elderly Burbank woman.

Journalist Edward Montgomery, who has covered Barbara's case all along, questions her conviction and publishes a sympathetic series of articles describing her troubled life.

"implied that Graham's guilt or innocence was largely irrelevant, that the real crime was committed by a justice system that framed her and a media that abetted the effort...

"[4] The film also suggests that Graham, though believed to have sociopathic tendencies in real life, was dangerous only to herself as a result of her loveless childhood and abusive mother.

[5] In an interview with Robert Osborne, Susan Hayward admitted that her research on the evidence and letters in the case led her to believe that Graham was guilty.

[7][8] The film's screenplay was originally written by Don Mankiewicz based on letters by convicted murderer Barbara Graham, who was executed in 1955, and a series of articles by journalist Edward S.

[9] In early 1958, after a draft of the screenplay was completed, Nelson Gidding was commissioned to write a redraft and tighten the narrative as it "lacked focus" and contained too many pages concentrating on Graham's troubled childhood.

[10] Gidding's redraft omitted any depiction of the murder of Mable Monohan as well as Graham's months spent at San Quentin State Prison during her appeals.

[14] Producer Walter Wanger received numerous congratulatory letters praising the film after its release, including those from writers Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Leon Uris and Albert Camus, all of whom were ardent opponents of capital punishment.

[15] Variety magazine published a favorable review: "There is no attempt to gloss the character of Barbara Graham, only an effort to understand it through some fine irony and pathos.

She had no hesitation about indulging in any form of crime or vice that promised excitement on her own, rather mean, terms ... Hayward brings off this complex characterization.

"[16] Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: "Miss Hayward plays it superbly, under the consistently sharp direction of Robert Wise, who has shown here a stunning mastery of the staccato realistic style.

From a loose and wise-cracking B-girl she moves onto levels of cold disdain and then plunges down to depths of terror and bleak surrender as she reaches the end.

"[17] Gene Blake, the reporter who covered the actual murder trial for the Los Angeles Daily Mirror, called the film "a dramatic and eloquent piece of propaganda for the abolition of the death penalty.

The television film features Lindsay Wagner, Martin Balsam, Pamela Reed, Harry Dean Stanton, Dana Elcar, Ellen Geer, Robert Ginty and Barry Primus.