Dark angel film full#
Dark angel film trial#

John Bryson's book Evil Angels was published in 1985 and film rights were bought by Verity Lambert, who got the interest of Meryl Streep. Dorothy Alison as Avis Murchison, Lindy's mother.Charles 'Bud' Tingwell as Justice James Muirhead.Neil Fitzpatrick as John Phillips, Q.C.The film ends with Michael commenting on the ongoing battle to clear the family's name. Lindy is immediately released from prison, the case is reopened and all convictions against the Chamberlains are overturned. More than three years later, while searching for the body of an English tourist who fell from Uluru, police discover clothing that is identified as the jacket Lindy had insisted Azaria was wearing over her jumpsuit, which had been recovered early in the investigation. In October 1982, Lindy is found guilty and immediately sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour, while Michael is found guilty as an accessory and given an 18-month suspended sentence.

Dark angel film trial#

As the trial progresses, Michael's faith in his religion and his belief in his wife falter, and he stumbles through his testimony, suggesting he is concealing the truth. Seven months pregnant, she ignores her attorneys' advice to play to the jury's sympathy and appears stoic on the stand, convincing some onlookers of her guilt. Law-enforcement officials find new witnesses, forensics experts, and circumstantial evidence and reopen the investigation, eventually charging Lindy with murder. The couple's religious beliefs are not widely practised in the country, and when the media report a rumour that the name Azaria means 'sacrifice in the wilderness', the public is quick to believe they decapitated their baby with a pair of scissors as part of a bizarre religious rite. Gossip about her begins to swell and soon is accepted as statements of fact. For many, Lindy seems too stoic, too cold-hearted, and too accepting of the disaster that has befallen the family. However, the tide of public opinion soon turns against the Chamberlains. It is assumed what Lindy saw was the animal carrying Azaria, and a subsequent inquest rules her account of events as true. When she discovers the infant is missing, everyone joins forces to search for her, without success. Lindy returns to the tent to check and is certain she sees a dingo with something in its mouth running off as she approaches. With the baby sleeping in their tent, the family enjoys a barbecue with their fellow campers when a cry is heard. Seventh-day Adventist Church pastor Michael Chamberlain, his wife Lindy Chamberlain, their two sons, and their nine-week-old daughter Azaria are on a camping holiday in the Australian Outback. The film received generally favourable reviews with Streep's performance receiving high praise and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, but was a box office disappointment, grossing only $6.9 million against its $15 million budget.

The film was released less than two months after the Chamberlains were exonerated by the Northern Territory Court of Appeals of all charges filed against them. Meryl Streep and Sam Neill star as the Chamberlains. It chronicles the case of Azaria Chamberlain, a nine-week-old baby girl who disappeared from a campground near Uluru (then called Ayers Rock) in August 1980 and the struggle of her parents, Michael Chamberlain and Lindy Chamberlain, to prove their innocence to a public convinced that they were complicit in her death. The screenplay by Schepisi and Robert Caswell is based on John Bryson's 1985 book of the same name.

Dark angel film full#

Watch Ackles full appearance on the “Inside of You” podcast in the video below.Evil Angels (released as A Cry in the Dark outside Australia and New Zealand) is a 1988 Australian drama film directed by Fred Schepisi. If she walked in, we’d be all hugs, but she didn’t make it easy on me.” “She literally just walked into my trailer and held me for a half an hour,” Ackles said. The “Dark Angel” co-stars eventually found common ground, with Alba even going out of her way to comfort Ackles after his grandfather passed away during production. She just was like, ‘Oh, here’s the pretty boy that network brought in for some more window dressing because that’s what we all need.’ Very quickly I was like, ‘What the fuck? What did I do?'”Īckles said he fought “fire with fire” and the two gained mutual respect for each other over time with the mentality of “I’ll be a dick to him and he’ll be a dick to me and that’s how we’ll role.” The actor added, “But we bickered. “Like the worst kind of bickering a brother and sister could do. “I was the new kid on the block, and I got picked on by the lead,” he added.