A Cry In The Dark (Evil Angels)

Any thoughts in this movie from 1988, starring Meryl Streep as Lindy Chamberlain, wrongly convicted of slaughtering her baby daughter Azaria in the Australian outback in the early 80s?

Any memories?

I take note Spielberg pronouncing it used to be the perfect film of the yr. I think it used to be prescient for taking pictures tabloid tradition. Streep and Sam Neill are excellent in it.

I remember “The dingo ate my baby.”

Meryl must have won the Oscar, as competitive as that 12 months was once.

She gained Best Actress at Cannes, New York Film Critics and Australia's Best Actress award too.

What's the level of making a baby put on that cap, it is not for warmth and it looks itchy as fuck. Maybe that baby had a demise wish and wanted to be eaten via the dingo.

The "dingo ate my baby" line not withstanding, Sam Neill as the husband that supports her, but sooner or later cracks and loses religion in her via the finish of the film used to be a stand out. Not the showy performance of M, however very affective

Loved the entirety about that movie! It's my Steel Magnolias!

It used to be remarkable prescient

M wasn't showy in this ...I felt she gave a in reality great efficiency. She will have to have received the oscar.

You'll never convince me I did not do it.

Possibly Meryl's best performance.

Is this the movie Meryl got her grimy pillows out in the shower scene?

One of the most beautiful actresses in film historical past, now not afraid to deglam

Sam Neill is so hot. Young in this movie.

Another of Meryl's many "accent roles".

R18 do you expect her to do the ones roles in her NJ accessory? She's a fucking actress

No--I'm just suggesting she turns out to hunt out roles that require that she do an accent.

Meryl stole that coiffure from Natasha!

She did not seek out roles, do you perhaps assume the filmmakers thought, we'd like a well known actress who can pull off an accent?

I worked for a skill company in LA back in the past due 80s. Evil Angels had completed manufacturing and used to be readying for free up by the end of the year. The studio didn't care for the identify and used to be seeking to come up with one thing that used to be "more commercial". It went thru a few different titles and roughly changed into a contest in my administrative center. The largest blockbuster that year were Three Men and a Baby, so i got here up with the identify "Three Dingoes and a Baby". It stuck and everyone in my place of job referred to that title even lengthy after the movie changed into A Cry in the Dark.

Her best possible efficiency at the side of Silkwood in that she disappears into an on a regular basis persona. IIRC a lot of "deplorables" who hate her on display outside the courthouse. Trashy even via Aussie standards.

If you watch carefully, you'll notice there are few close ups. I believe that actually helps floor her efficiency and keeps it from being as showy because it otherwise would possibly have been. I feel in some of the extra emotional exchanges in the court docket the digicam is not even on her. Could be false memory but that used to be my influence.

Sam Neill was once a good-looking hunk. This is one in every of the few M performances I love. I will be able to't stand maximum of her work.

I watched this film about 10 years in the past. It's in point of fact fascinating because it was once forward of it's time. The movie is in point of fact about "Instant fame" and the impact it has on you and those around you. Also, the "court of public opinion". In our current era of social media and "cancel culture" it will be attention-grabbing to observe again.

Was the child truly eaten via the dingo? Did they ever discovered the bones?

I am not generally a Streep fan, however I agree that this used to be a terrific performance from her. It didn’t feel so self-aware and cutesy like Streep performances normally do. And Sam Neill was additionally terrific.

There is something unique about this movie. It’s virtually like a movie-sized cleaning soap opera or a bigger price range TV movie of the week. I really loved it though.

R24 interesting about the loss of closeups. Maybe that’s the je ne sais quoi I liked about this movie: it treats Meryl Streep simply the similar as it would have handled some C-list actress.

Streep is very convincing. I feel Judy Davis or Wendy Hughes may have achieved well too, however they were not global box place of job points of interest...

R28, the frame was by no means discovered. Just a singlet and bloody jumpsuit.

In 2012, a 3rd inquest concluded that . . .

The dingo are her child.

That was after a string of different dingo attacks on babies was once publicized.

There was a 1983 Australian TV movie known as Who Killed Baby Azaria? that introduced a number of situations for what happened that evening.

R28 yes, they found the child jacket years later and it had dingo bites in it.

R31 this in fact had a very limited release for some reason and made very little money. It wasn't even released in most of the world.

That horrible bowl haircut ...... Of course she did it!

Shut up Patsy Ramsey at R38

The precise line, in real lifestyles, was once "The dingo's got my baby."

Maybe the manufacturers idea Americans would not perceive what "got" supposed. At that point we have been just emerging from the generation when Australian motion pictures had been subtitled for the US.

The final inquest established, IIRC, that a dingo or similar huge dog did take the child. It found there was once most likely human interference with the clothes earlier than they were found - however that could have come from somebody who later discovered them and/or the remains and took fright at the concept of becoming concerned in such an unpredictable case. The inquest also established that key professional forensic evidence towards Lindy at the trial that jailed her was just simple flawed and that in reality there wasn't anything to suggest she murdered the kid. Lindy is still alive and has given reasonably contemporary interviews about the complete thing and the way she has managed to put it in viewpoint and get on with her lifestyles. Her remaining youngsters, now grown up, all seem to be very connected to her.

PS Meryl Streep's accessory in that movie used to be very a lot not one of her triumphs. Lindy's accent is a tough aggregate of Aus and NZ, however Streep achieved neither that nor either of them in my view. The queen of the Australasian accessory is Kate Winslet. She could cross for Australian anyplace.

Seinfeld episode where Elaine is attending a boring celebration and solutions a woman's question with Australian accent "the dingoes ate my baby."

R40 she sounded just like Lindy you shit

Australians always say her dialect is terrible in this.

Her "best" performance when she mentioned she knew nothing about Harvey Weinstein, never heard any rumors about him, YET warned her fledgling actress daughter to keep away from him. I lost all admire for her ...she merits as Oscar for being an expert LIAR.

I do not believe Australians should disparage somebody's accent.

I'm an Aussie and he or she fooled me

[quote] Seinfeld episode the place Elaine is attending a boring birthday party and answers a woman's query with Australian accent "the dingoes ate my baby."

[buzzer]

The girl was wondering aloud where her “baby” (her boyfriend) had gone. Elaine seems to be at her and says “Maybe the dingo ate your baby.”

I bear in mind her calling it a “babby.” Good film, even though. I simply watched Heartburn and Sophie’s Choice again. She actually used to be nice.

Still is R48

It's the movies that got crappier

Don Gummer in reality latched onto a goldmine when he wed La Streep. His sculptures are dreadful.

I like Heartburn ... haven't seen it in years!

Australia also has that extraordinary case of three youngsters lacking from the identical circle of relatives...however I don't think the dingoes are being implicated right here.

One of her very best. I used to study her in this film as a teenager, and run round pestering family and friends with monologues and bits of debate from this.

Wait! Wait! A dingo ate my baby! A dingo ate my child!

Could you consider if a dingo ran off along with your baby and no one believed you!

One her actually highest performances. Her last great one.

Australia will have to be a infanticidal maniac's fable. You do not even have to lie about black males hijacking your car and killing your small children. All you need to do is take them tenting out the place the dingos can get them.

Did she see the dingo take her baby? I cant take into account if the baby was in the tent on my own asleep.

R51 I don’t know why it got unhealthy reviews!

A few critics felt this was once her easiest efficiency as a result of you'll see she used to be struggling with the accessory. It freed her performance up in other essential areas and didn't make it as stagey as she in most cases is.

Australian threads are all the time such fun!

They flush out the crass, I’ll-educated Americans who know nothing about the position.

Every unmarried time.

Yes I agree the accessory is a mix of Oz and New Zealand. Like in the famous scene, the place she cries, "You're talking about my baby daughter. Not some object." The method she says object is more NZ-ish.

I'm now not sure why other folks - stupid folks - are going on about how "prescient" this film was. Erm, it if truth be told happened! Duh. Were the occasions themselves then, uh, prescient...?

I guess it was once the canary in the coal mine as it may well be said the media frenzy surrounding this case that almost price an blameless woman her life, was whipped up by means of the Murdoch media in Australia. That's the thread. He just moved on to larger platforms.

Correction:

[quote]We're speaking about my baby daughter... Not. Some. ObjecT."

:swoon:

Australians have that same vicious , dumb, and reactionary element that many Americans do. Probably from the same culture (scotch irish , scottish, irish) too. There was really nothing unbelievable about her story. Only a bunch of morons would think it was impossible. Then again, Australia we as the same place where a child aids patient was driven out of town in the 80s and had to settle with their family in New Zealand (where they were apparently welcomed).

R63 I don't think you can claim that the Murdoch media "whipped" the people into what R65 describes as being 'vicious, dumb, and reactionary'.

They were responding to—

1. the Chamberlains' strange religion (Seventh Day Adventist). 2. the missing child's strange name (they speculated it meant 'sacrifice win the desert'). 3. Lindy Chamberlain's unemotional responses (the recent authorised 40 year anniversary doco says those unemotional responses were due to the fact that she was responding to the police asking the same questions 20 times over).

That 'vicious, dumb, and reactionary' that R65 describes is the crux of the story rather than the condescending performance by the imported Hollywood diva.

The documentaries on Youtube are much more informative about poor Lindy Chamberlain than this confected movie with its condescending imported Hollywood diva.

[quote] its condescending imported Hollywood diva.

That’s harsh.

I love it!

this was the year there was a three way tie for Best Actress at the Golden Globes.

Meryl wasn't one of the three. She and Christine Lahti had to sit there in the audience dejected.

I remember there was a small brouhaha about Streep being cast, as an American in an Australian story. But then Fred had a hardon for her after they did Plenty together. The only Oz actress I can think that had international success at the time is Judy Davis and I can't see Judy in the part. But I could be underestimating her because I much prefer Judy to Meryl as an actress.

Why was it called Evil Angels in some places? That seems like an odd title for it.

that is the name of the source book.

^ The source book alluded to the Christian belief in redemption, the promise of deliverance from sin and bondage, but gives it a secular application, in the attempt to see justice done, and especially to obtain Lindy Chamberlain’s release from prison.

Yes before the book came out the general opinion was that Lindy had killed her daughter.

The movie was an adaptation of the book by John Bryson, which was originally published as "Evil Angels":

"This identify reprises a theme sounded in the opening, for Bryson begins his story no longer with the family attaining Uluru, and even atmosphere out for Central Australia, however in Pennsylvania in 1844, on a night time when Seventh-Day Adventists had predicted the Second Coming of Christ would happen. The failure of that expectation brought forth what one in every of their leaders known as 'the exulting, sneering triumph of evil angels'. That episode, known to Adventists as 'the Great Disappointment', units a tone of despair for the Australian tale of injustice that follows. Biblical quotations are sprinkled all through the ebook, spoken through the members of the church, or used as pictures through Bryson. Faith examined by opposed cases in the first case; faith juxtaposed with skepticism in the 2d."

I wonder if the casting was to take advantage of the Australian government's 10BA system. In the 1980s, private financing increased as a result of tax incentives for Australian-made film and television productions. Division 10BA (1981) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 allowed investors a 150% tax concession on their investment at risk. There were a slew of international actors imported for Australian films, granted most of them were second-rate or has-beens.

[quote] I don't understand why that 10BA system was discontinued.

Come see us at the Bronze tomorrow night!

Beautiful, haunting score by Bruce Smeaton (who also scored Plenty, the other Fred Schepisi directed film starring M and Sam Neill).

[quote] Why was it called Evil Angels in some places? That seems like an odd title for it.

A lot of the prejudice against Lindy Chamberlain stemmed from the fact that people were suspicious of her religion, the Seventh-Day Adventists, and it was thought she had sacrificed baby Azaria as part of an evil cult ritual.

Also, the site of the disappearance, Uluru (then called Ayers Rock), is noted to be sacred to the local Anangu (aboriginal) people.

I wonder what the Seventh-Day Adventist religion has in common with the Anangu religion.

Meryl Streep as Lindy Chamberlain in Evil Angels and Kylie Minogue as Petra von Kant in Bio-Dome are two of the greatest representations of Australians in cinema.

I bought the 2004 miniseries starring Miranda Otto years ago out of curiosity but never got around to watching it.

It was weird that Shitley, Siggy and Jodie all tied for the Globe and Meryl's superior performance ignored. Meryl did win Cannes, NYCFC and Australia's Best Actress award.

Shitley musta been sore, becoming the first GG Drama winner not to get an Oscar nom.

I think Dangerous Liaisons had a very late release, hence why no Glenn.

Lindy' s hair...a mushroom cut to beat all mushroom cuts. Not flattering to groom yourself like a vegetable

Googling pictures of Lindy show how much of her wardrobe made it into the film. I remember M sporting this unflattering number.

She now favors bright bold prints.

^ The young Lindy Chamberlain was a petite woman (whose face reminded me of Judy Garland's).

But that imported Hollywood diva was a big boned woman with a problematic nose and jaw. The diva had to wear that large mushroom hair-do (R86) to minimise her big nose and jaw.

Critical people say that Lindy Chamberlain was a naive, simple-minded, uneducated member of a Christian sect. But that imported Hollywood diva turned her into a risible caricature.

Did Meryl fuck Sam Neill during the making of this film? She had a reputation for sleeping with all her co-stars.

Judy Davis has a tendency to accentuate her characters' neurotic sides, so she would need to rein that in to play Lindy.

[quote] Judy Davis

Yes, it would be painful for her to restrain her usual scenery-chewing habits but her small stature makes her a better match than that statuesque, large-featured, imported Hollywood diva.

Davis doesn't chew scenery all the time, though she certainly does in the Ryan Murphy crap she's been in lately. But that material invites and even needs that kind of acting to mask the threadbare, overhyped material.

I thought she was marvelous and pitch perfect in films like A PASSAGE TO INDIA, HUSBANDS AND WIVES, IMPROMPTU, HIGH TIDE, THE REF, and the little seen SWIMMING UPSTREAM.

R93 that may be the first time anyone referred to M as statuesque

Judy has done accents. After all she is Australian and has worked a lot in America, and has also done English and a German one in Kangaroo. But I still can't imagine her doing Lindy's voice. She just seems too urban. Perhaps Meryl could do it because she is more like a blank canvas who takes on the exteriors of a character.

Deborah Furness had a cameo as a reporter.

Looking over the cast it must have tickled Meryl that there is a featured extra named Charles Dance.

R17 Sam Neill is very active on Twitter. He's a lot of fun, and has a wonderful sense of humor.

So apparently the dingo really DID take the baby. It took how many years to figure that out?

Sam Neill recently narrated a docuseries about the Chamberlain case.

The recent authorised 40 year anniversary doco (which isn't on Youtube, unfortunately) says much blame should be given to this man (below).

He was anxious to blame Lindy and not discourage potential tourists to this relatively-unattractive, and unpleasant hot, arid part of the nation.

R36 I remember that movie, it was exploitative and pretty sordid, and presented the "what if she did it" version of Lindy as a scheming witch. It was also a ratings bonanza. I think that movie did more to harm her reputation than anything that happened in the courthouse. People were calling for the death penalty the morning after that movie aired.

The Sam Neill produced (and narrated) documentary is currently on YouTube.

The actress was a little too good in the 1983 TV movie. The husband was played by the presenter of the children's show Playschool, John Hamblin, who looked almost exactly like the real husband.

I cannot remember who the actress was, but it was heartbreaking when they portrayed Lindy as the victim, but they then showed Lindy killing Azaria with surgical scissors in the other scenario, cleaning up the mess, damaging the baby jumper to look like it was a dingo attack. All in the space of five minutes, and then returning to the campsite as if nothing happened and acting out the whole dingo scenario. I don't think the movie even bothered to come up with a plausible explanation of why she did it, other than she was some kind of devil worshipper.

I know many people are minboggingly stupid, but having read the prosecution's theory, I can't understand how it wasn't laughed out of court.

The prosecution didn't want to kill the Tourist Industry.

The embodiment of weird church lady dressing. I believe she sewed her own clothes, which was in the movie. Even for early 1980s the hair and clothes were appallingly bad.

I think another thing that worked against the Chamberlains's story was that dingoes had never killed a human baby before.

which is why I guess they thought it was ok to leave the baby by herself though I seem to recall the brother was there too.

[quote]Even for early 1980s the hair and clothes were appallingly bad.

You can still buy clothing every bit as hideous as that in Australia. Supre anyone?

only on Datalounge r90.

The biography of her "Her, Again" details the lengths she went to to fend off Jack Nicholdon'd advances.

(banned from her hotel floor in Heartburn, furious when he tricked her into a "date" at Chasten's by saying the whole cast was coming and then showing up alone.

Meryl and Lindy at around the 54:00 minute mark.

Fuck, Sam Neill was hot.

[quote] Meryl and Lindy at around the 54:00 minute mark

Meryl's so big and and Lindy's so small.

I thought this authorised doco was good and thorough.

But it didn't want to dwell on their religion. Nor did it give any insight on why the once-pretty Michael divorced before he died so soon.

M should have won for this

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