****SPOILERS*** Effective anti-death penalty movie released two years after the far more popular "I Want to Live" and a month after the headline grabbing, Caryl Chessman execution on May 2, 1960 in the San Quentin gas chamber. The film "Why Must I Die" showed how a innocent person can be executed by the state by mistake. It was popular nightclub singer Lois King's, Terry Moore, misfortune to get sucked into participating in a robbery of her place of employment the "Cockatoo" night club by hoodlum Eddie Rainey, Lionel Ames, and his safe-cracking gun moll Dottie Mason, Debra Paget.
With Eddie blackmailing Lois in exposing her ex-convict dad Red King, Fred Sherman, unsolved crimes that the two participated in he got Lois to help him & Dottie knock off the "Cockatoo's" weekly take. It just happened that Loiss' boyfriend Kenny Randell,Phil Harvey,showed up unexpectedly and was blown away by Dottie. With the luckless Lois who was found at the scene of the crime by the just awakened night-watchman who was put to sleep with a spiked cup of coffee, by Lois, with the murder weapon, that Dottie dropped, in her possession! Arrested tried convicted and sentenced to death for Kenny's murder, in what seemed like 15 seconds, Louis can only be saved if both Eddie & Dottie confessed to their crime-fat chance-to keep her from being strapped into the state electric chair. It's Lois' court appointed lawyer Mr.Adler,Burt Freed, who somehow feels that she's innocent and tries to get her execution date postponed until he can dig up new evidence in her favor.
***SPOILERS*** As things turn out it's Lois dad Red King who in trying to help his daughter screws things up big time by in trying to get his former partner in crime Eddie Rainey to confess his and Dottie's part in the robbery of the "Cockatoo" and murder of Kenny Randell. Red in trying to get him to confess to the police accidentally pushes Eddie off the fire escape of his 10th floor hotel room to his death! The only chance now for Lois to escape the hot seat now is Dottie who's now in women's prison together with Lois for a stick-up robbery where she ended up shooting a blind man whom she thought witnessed the robbery!
****MAJOR SPOILER***It's Dottie's enraged and fellow women inmates who get her, by working her over, to confess to her murder of Kenny Randell but as luck would have it Lois was already zapped, with 2,000 volts of electricity, before the warden or governor could stop the execution! We get to see here how justice can go wrong and an innocent person could end up dead for a crime that she or he didn't commit when the death penalty is involved. Unlike in a prison term it can't be reversed 1 or 10 or even 20 years later due to new found evidence. But in the case of the death penalty its permanent for the person who's sentenced and subjected to it!
With Eddie blackmailing Lois in exposing her ex-convict dad Red King, Fred Sherman, unsolved crimes that the two participated in he got Lois to help him & Dottie knock off the "Cockatoo's" weekly take. It just happened that Loiss' boyfriend Kenny Randell,Phil Harvey,showed up unexpectedly and was blown away by Dottie. With the luckless Lois who was found at the scene of the crime by the just awakened night-watchman who was put to sleep with a spiked cup of coffee, by Lois, with the murder weapon, that Dottie dropped, in her possession! Arrested tried convicted and sentenced to death for Kenny's murder, in what seemed like 15 seconds, Louis can only be saved if both Eddie & Dottie confessed to their crime-fat chance-to keep her from being strapped into the state electric chair. It's Lois' court appointed lawyer Mr.Adler,Burt Freed, who somehow feels that she's innocent and tries to get her execution date postponed until he can dig up new evidence in her favor.
***SPOILERS*** As things turn out it's Lois dad Red King who in trying to help his daughter screws things up big time by in trying to get his former partner in crime Eddie Rainey to confess his and Dottie's part in the robbery of the "Cockatoo" and murder of Kenny Randell. Red in trying to get him to confess to the police accidentally pushes Eddie off the fire escape of his 10th floor hotel room to his death! The only chance now for Lois to escape the hot seat now is Dottie who's now in women's prison together with Lois for a stick-up robbery where she ended up shooting a blind man whom she thought witnessed the robbery!
****MAJOR SPOILER***It's Dottie's enraged and fellow women inmates who get her, by working her over, to confess to her murder of Kenny Randell but as luck would have it Lois was already zapped, with 2,000 volts of electricity, before the warden or governor could stop the execution! We get to see here how justice can go wrong and an innocent person could end up dead for a crime that she or he didn't commit when the death penalty is involved. Unlike in a prison term it can't be reversed 1 or 10 or even 20 years later due to new found evidence. But in the case of the death penalty its permanent for the person who's sentenced and subjected to it!