"A CRY IN THE DARK" - Production Information - On a cool Spring night in 1980--in the vast Australian outback--a baby disappears. Was tiny Azaria Chamberlain abducted as her distraught mother maintained? Or did Lindy Chamberlain commit the most bizarre murder in Australia's history? The disappearance of nine-week-old Azaria from a campsite at one of Australia's most remarkable scenic attractions, Ayers Rock, obsessed a nation and triggered a media witch hunt that lasted for half-a- decade. Azaria's body was never found. But her parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, were tried -- by rumor, suspicion and religious intolerance--and, in a court of law, Lindy was found guilty of murder. With no body, motive, weapon, nor clear evidence, why did practically an entire nation conclude that a happily married young couple had killed their baby daughter? "A Cry in the Dark" is the chilling true story of Lindy Chamberlain, a bereaved mother who became the most hated woman in Australia. Warner Bros. presents Meryl Streep and Sam Neill in A Cannon Entertainment, Inc./Golan-Globus Production in association with Cinema Verity Limited, a Fred Schepisi Film, "A Cry in the Dark." Ian Baker is the Director of Photography; the music is by Bruce Smeaton. Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus are the executive producers; Roy Stevens served as line producer. The Warner Bros. release has a screenplay by Robert Caswell and Fred Schepisi, based on Evil Angels by John Bryson. The film was produced by Verity Lambert and directed by Fred Schepisi. The year was 1980. Into the seemingly endless outback to Ayers Rock -- Australia's number-one tourist attraction and most sacred Aboriginal site -- ventured the Chamberlain family, on a camping trip that would shatter their lives. Lindy (MERYL STREEP) and Michael Chamberlain (SAM NEILL) had brought their two young sons, Aidan and Reagan, and their baby daughter, Azaria, along on the trip. After an uneventful night in the local campsite, the family visited the fabled rock, then returned to the camp to enjoy a moonlight barbecue with fellow outback visitors Sally and Greg Lowe. Little Reagan and nine-week-old Azaria slept peacefully a few yards away in the family tent. The nightmare started when Sally Lowe heard a baby's cry emerging from the Chamberlains' tent. Investigating, Lindy glimpsed a shadowy form of a dingo (a wolflike, wild dog, akin to the American coyote) slinking away--and discovered her daughter missing. Lindy gave chase; but a full-scale search of the barren area revealed absolutely no trace of either Azaria nor the wild scavenger. News of the baby's disappearance traveled quickly. But as the reports spread to the major cities to the south, so did speculation. And, as time passed without a trace of the baby, the nation's news media eagerly grabbed onto even the wildest rumor. Shortly, thousands of miles from Ayers Rock, people learned via newspapers, television and radio, that the Chamberlains had acted oddly. Why didn't they weep, or show more emotion? Surely a young mother who had just lost her only daughter would be beside herself with grief. How, asked the doubters, could a "wild dog" possibly carry away a child without leaving a trace? Fact and fantasy became irrevocably confused and what followed not only became a terrible time for the Chamberlains, but for their religious organization as well. The Chamberlains are devout Seventh Day Adventists -- Michael, in fact, at the time, was an Adventist pastor. The Adventists' belief in a Second Coming -- when the living and the dead shall be reunited on Earth -- was misconstrued by an increasingly intolerant public and press, and the Chamberlains' calm faith was viewed as unnatural. Soon the nation was buzzing with rumor and misinformation: that Seventh Day Adventists were a sect of weirdos, that Azaria meant "sacrifice in the wilderness," that Lindy Chamberlain had cut her daughter's throat. People whispered that Azaria had been born malformed, that she was the Devil's child. There was no truth to any of the rumors, yet they found their way onto newspaper front pages, television and radio. Soon, with the exception of the Seventh Day Adventists who believed in the Chamberlains' innocence, it seemed there was no one in Australia who didn't have a theory about how baby Azaria had disappeared. Although the inquest exonerated the Chamberlains, public opinion did not. Neither did the local police who gathered forensic evidence for a second inquest. On the strength of their findings, Lindy was charged with Azaria's murder; Michael, as an accessory after the fact. By the time the case came to trial in the isolated, steamy Northern Territory capital of Darwin, Lindy was seven months pregnant. Bewildered but sustained by their faith, she and Michael, confronted daily by hostile crowds, faced the long courtroom ordeal stoically. No motive for murder was ever brought forward, no weapon produced. The only evidence against the Chamberlains came from forensic witnesses, evidence which was hotly disputed from the outset and too complex to be easily understood. Almost without exception, news media and public opinion seized upon every tiny aspect of the shaky evidence that supported a presumption of guilt. Throughout Australia, Lindy had been tried and found guilty before entering the courtroom. The judge's summation -- clearly calling for a verdict of "not guilty" -- fell on deaf ears. Lindy was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor. Michael was found guilty as an accessory after the fact, but his 18-month sentence was suspended in order that he might care for the now "motherless" Chamberlain children. When Lindy gave birth to another daughter, a Northern Territory jail was deemed inappropriate for the child and baby Kahlia was taken from her mother. With nothing left for Lindy to cling to except faith, God's heavenly plan, in her eyes, seemed very distant. Even after justice had been "served," however, the Chamberlains were not forgotten. With a growing number of thoughtful observers becoming increasingly uneasy, 31 scientists signed an open letter protesting the conclusions of a forensic expert, and a Plea for Justice Committee was founded by widely respected artist Pro Hart and sculptor Guy Boyd. Undisputed men of honor, Hart and Boyd were outraged by what they perceived as a monumental miscarriage of justice. As the outrage spread, more than 100,000 Australians signed a petition on Lindy's behalf. Ironically, it took another death to supply strong evidence that pointed toward that miscarriage of justice. A British climber had fallen to his death from Ayers Rock and while searching for his body, police stumbled upon Azaria's missing jacket. Five years earlier, Lindy had insisted on the existence of the jacket. But a prolonged police search had failed to find it. The jacket now found, Lindy's explanation could no longer be discounted. Lindy was released from jail after serving three-and- one-half years of her life sentence and was reunited with Michael and their children. Despite their relief, the Chamberlains felt they couldn't stop there, that they had to clear their names. They launched an appeal, and two years later, on September 15, 1988, three judges on Australia's Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal, asserting that their earlier convictions had "constitute(d) a miscarriage of justice and must be quashed," exonerated the Chamberlains of all charges. About the Book and Its Author... In 1985, Evil Angels, John Bryson's powerful account of Australia's bizarre murder case, caught the imagination of readers worldwide, drawing American critical comparison to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and winning him Britain's Golden Dagger prize. The Washington Post described the story as "so moving, so disturbing, that the book holds the reader in a kind of spell of suspense and pity." "Five hundred and fifty pages of cinematic excitement" was another critic's view of the book. But that wasn't the author's view. "I never thought of the book becoming a film," said Bryson. "The story seemed too big, too complex, to translate to the screen." A former lawyer-turned-author, Bryson started researching his book while the Chamberlain court proceedings were still in their early days. Even then, six books about the case were in the works. "I knew two books would have impact: the first, and the best," said Bryson. "And I was going to write the best." It took him four years, and when it was finished, the critical response left no doubt that Bryson had achieved what he'd set out to do. But that had not been the author's sole goal. "I wanted the book to be good, in a writing sense. But I also wanted it to perform a task. When it was published in 1985, Lindy Chamberlain was still in jail. Obviously, she shouldn't have been." Bryson has always modestly sidestepped the issue of how much influence his chronicle had in accelerating Lindy Chamberlain's release, but there can be no doubt that the book's publication in 1985 had enormous impact. Here at last -- in chilling detail -- was proof of spurious evidence, dubious forensic science, and a nation swayed by police rumor, innuendo and what Bryson later called public-relations tactics. "Here we had certain members of the investigative team using public relations as though it were an arm of justice," said Bryson, discussing the book four years after its publication. "It's something that has already happened in the United States, where the hearts and minds of a jury are being fought for from the moment that news of a crime hits the television screen. "The police, the personable defense lawyer, the district attorney--all of them are using public- relations methodologies." Bryson's book made it obvious that the Australian news media as well as jury members were victims of the public-relations machine. Many journalists showed up in a poor light, but Bryson believes that in time they resurrected their self-esteem a little. "Journalists were largely responsible for Lindy's conviction. But journalists also clamored for a re- opening of the case when it became plain that something had gone wrong. Police, lawyers and scientists were also responsible for Lindy Chamberlain's trial and conviction, but they weren't the ones who pressed for another look at the case. "On the contrary, it was law enforcement officers who kept right on putting up spurious evidence and scientists who kept validating it. "But even those journalists who came out looking bad in Evil Angels took up the cause after they read the book. And their influence as opinion makers helped to get things done." Bryson's original title for his book was God Should Have Been Here By Now, and he sees his own task as far from finished. Eight years after the disappearance of the Chamberlain baby, he's fighting for widespread social and legal reform and uses what went wrong in the Chamberlain case as evidence. About the Production... It took the combined talents and tenacity of an English producer, an Oscar-winning American actress and a distinguished Australian director to bring to the screen the story of this monumental miscarriage of justice. British producer Verity Lambert was immediately attracted to the screen potential of Bryson's book, Evil Angels. "My first thought was of tile witches of Salem, and how something so similar could happen in a civilized nation in the 1980s," says Lambert. "I also knew whom I wanted for it--Fred Schepisi, who's such a passionate, principled director, and Meryl Streep, to portray Lindy. I sensed that the project would appeal to Meryl, and fortunately it did." Only Schepisi, director of "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith," "The Devil's Playground" and "Plenty," had some initial reservations when Lambert called upon him to direct. The protagonist, Lindy Chamberlain, was still in prison, serving a life sentence for a murder she insisted had never occurred. "I was both enraged and fascinated," acknowledges Schepisi. "Enraged by what had happened, and fascinated by how and why. What had caused this irrational, emotional mass reaction? These people were sent to the bottom of hell. But how could I make this film without doing them further harm?" Streep's commitment was a powerful factor. "I came to realize that this was a story of public perception versus private reality," says Schepisi. "The public's impressions of others are generally incredibly wrong, on all sorts of levels. Here, media misinformation and wrong impressions kept refueling each other. Eventually public perception built into something so far removed from reality that it brought about a kind of group emotional madness. "It's the old pass-the-gossip routine. I tell you something, you tell it to someone else but just a little differently. By the time it reaches the tenth person, it's a totally different story. "In this case, a whole nation was playing pass-the- gossip. No wonder everyone was getting it wrong. "One very simple example: a woman at a dinner party in Australia one evening -- this is when we were shooting the film -- asked me if I knew about Lindy's sister. Then she proceeded to tell me that she knew for a fact that Lindy's sister had done something weird to a baby. The implication was that this ran in the family. "But Lindy doesn't even have a sister. And this woman wouldn't believe that. She told me that Lindy must have a sister because 'people wouldn't make up a thing like that.' "You need to know," adds Schepisi, "that these events really divided a nation. Everyone had a theory on what had really happened, it was as if nobody wanted to believe that a dingo had carried off the baby. I began to believe that there was some deep-seated need for evil in the minds of all of us. "Take lawyers, for instance. They're trained to think logically. They would be in some perfectly rational discussion of legal aspects of the case, then they'd suddenly say out of the blue, 'But she's guilty of course.' It was absolutely illogical." For the important co-starring role of Michael Chamberlain, Lambert, Streep and Schepisi all wanted Sam Neill, star of "Reilly: Ace of Spies," who had also played opposite Streep in "Plenty." Neill was available and equally enthusiastic about the project. The logistical problems of shooting the biggest film ever undertaken in Australia, on locations thousands of miles apart, proved more complex than any of the filmmakers had initially imagined. The speaking cast alone numbered 350, and there were nearly 4,000 extras. Shooting moved from Melbourne studios in the south to Darwin, Australia's "Top End," where Lindy Chamberlain had been found guilty of murder. This distance is roughly equivalent to travelling from Los Angeles to Mexico City--but with two important differences: there's only one road, and most of it is through uninhabited desert. As the company travelled -- from Melbourne to tropical Darwin -- from the mining community of Mt. Isa to Ayers Rock in the "red heart" of Australia -- the cast and crew faced what producer Lambert describes as a "baptism of fire," filming in temperatures of up to l14°F. The final days of shooting, in fact, were spent battling a freak desert storm. But while the locations were inhospitable, the people were not. "Although a lot of people still believed Lindy was guilty," producer Lambert reveals, "the government of the Northern Territory was very cooperative with all of our filming needs." Many locally recruited extras for the courtroom scenes had been partisan observers during the original court proceedings, prompting a local newspaper headline that read: "Déjà vu -- Darwin Relives Past." But the media hit an even eerier deja vu note when tabloid press gave Streep and Neill a taste of what the Chamberlains had gone through. Wild stories about the two stars bore as little resemblance to fact as had the reports of tile original Chamberlain case. "Ironically, that helped our performances," Neill acknowledges. "This was the most demanding role I've ever done, and Meryl and I felt beleaguered as the result of some tabloid fabrications, just as the Chamberlains had." In preparation for their roles, the two stars spent considerable time with the Chamberlains. "That made the film a rough emotional trip for Meryl and Sam," says Schepisi. "But their performances had the hairs on my neck standing on end." The final location filming was done at that mysterious symbol of the Australian outback, Ayers Rock, where the strange, sad, real-life story had begun. Besides being the most famed symbol of the Australian outback, the great desert monolith is a shrine of worship. For at least 10,000 years it has been regarded as a sacred site to Australia's nomadic Aboriginal tribes; but until 1985, these traditional owners of Australia's heartland were denied control of the area. When they were granted formal title to the land, they moved quickly to reduce commercial exploitation of their ancestral lands. Producer Verity Lambert feared obstacles to filming there. But the Aborigines were fully cooperative, asking only that the cast and crew respect the standards of conduct laid down by their community. Interestingly, the Aboriginal trackers who live in the area have always known that a dingo could take a baby. It is part of their mythology, handed down over thousands of years, and nothing the white man's courts rule can change that. "People think dingoes are lovely puppies living out in the desert," says Lambert. "They forget that in the desert there are no cans of dog food lying around. The dingoes have to eat live animals to survive, and to them, a baby would be no different than a rabbit." Lambert believes that what took place following Azaria's disappearance could occur anywhere. "I hope this is going to make other societies look at themselves and say: 'That could happen here; it could happen to anyone. It could happen to me.'"