Gone in the Night (1996) Online

This is based on a true story of the Dowalibys and the murder of their 7 year old daughter, Jaclyn, for which they stand accused. What happens to them, how the "system" tries to beat them down to submission and the lengths to which the prosecutors are willing to go to win, is the basis of the movie. Shannen Doherty delivers a gripping portrayal of Cindi Dowaliby, as first she fights the system, then she has to fight her husband. This may well be her best performance. I don't know how you pick the supporting cast in this story. There were no "small" parts (I watched the movie initially because a former newscaster from my home town was in it and may have had the only small part). Ed Asner, Dixie Carter, etc., would be classified as supporting cast, I guess, and they played their roles to perfection, Asner as the retired detective and Carter as the mother-in-law who finally comes to grips with her shortcomings and discovers that she has great affection for her daughter-in-law. The circumstances surrounding the investigation, the arrests, trial, and unexpected outcome all tie together so quickly that there are no "slow moments" where your mind can wonder without losing part of the plot or the puzzle pieces. But this isn't Hollywood, this is real and you feel you're watching a retrospective news report, except for the personal exchanges between the Cindi and David. When they can't agree on how to handle the initial verdict, your not sure David will listen and it might cost him dearly. If you don't know how the situation ended (as I didn't), you might think it had a much different ending. A truly riveting movie, I found myself wishing I knew what subsequently has become of the Dowalibys. I could definitely watch it again.

This is one of the best made-for-TV movies I have ever seen...I would love to be able to buy it somehow. I stumbled upon it while I was home alone and I've been thinking about it ever since! The plot is very good, the acting terrific...at first I wondered how Shannen Doherty could play a mother but she was very talented...the film in a whole is just wonderful, it has just the right amount of drama, not too much. If you ever stumble upon it DEFINITIVELY watch it!!

** Spoiler Warning **

This movie is so sad to watch, the film is about a couple daughter is is abducted and then killed and they are blamed for it. soon they are put on trail for the murder of their daughter. the film is a top buy - if you can find it in the shops. it shows how the media influenced the case. the film is based on a true story. it's the kinda film you will never forget.

Shannen Doherty acting is stop on. it shows her at her best.

the film co stared - Kevin Dillon, Edward Asner, Michael Brandon and Dixie Carter

I think that this film is absolutely great! I think Shannen Doherty is a brilliant actress. I think she played the role of Cindy Dowaliby really well. I think that the film was shown very well and reported very well. It had a good sence of keeping to the real story.I think that these types of films get you into the film genre of real life and true stories. I hope that Shannen Doherty (who is one of my favourite actresses) recieves another good film like this.PLEASE MAKE OTHER FILMS LIKE THIS BECAUSE THEY REALLY GET TO THE HEART!

David and Cindi Dowaliby are accused of murdering their own daughter in 1988. At first no one suspects they killed their little girl until newspapers hit the stands claiming the David killed his daughter while Cindi stayed home and cleaned the blood-stained sheets. That isn't the truth though! Soon Cindi is found innocent and David is left. He was sentenced to 45 years of jail for the murder of little Jaclyn. Soon people suspect that JacLyns brother Davey has been sexually and phsyically abused. The newspapers are using this to spice up their paper. One of the main suspects of the movie is Cindi's ex-husband's brother. In the end no one is ever charged with little JacLyns Murder!

I just saw this movie... they divided it up. So the first half they showed last Tuesday and the last one today. I thought that I would watch it, I dídn't really know what it was. I just read that Shannen was in it, and I thought: Hey, Shannen's great so this movie outa be great too. And it really was great, but also very very sad. I mean I cried throught the whole movie. Cindy was a very strong person who didn't give up, she's a fighter. If you haven't seen it, I sugjest you go rent it, it's a very good movie... and I too would like to own it on tape

What if a young husband and wife with two small children (and another child on the way) have their home broken into one night and have their daughter kidnapped and killed? And what if the police, detectives, doctors and district attorneys all act in an unskilled and/or unethical way and submit the husband, wife and even the surviving child to horror after horror? What if the very expensive lawyers the innocent family hire to save themselves are too inept and uncaring to help the family escape their nightmare?

Based upon a true story, GONE IN THE NIGHT is set in Chicago. The acting is fine, although the actor playing the husband seems to have a New York accent more than a Chicago accent.

Watching this TV movie back-to-back with another Chicago based movie, THE FUGITIVE, will take away all faith the viewer might have in the criminal justice system.

Without giving anything away, at the end of this movie drama turns to real life. The impact of this kind of ending is completely effective. Watch the whole story, and then hold on.

A very good effort for a made for TV film.

I viewed this movie today for the first time. It really made me think about how blessed my family has been. It was well acted...and made me feel the real family's pain. It also made lost children more real to me. It was real to me yesterday....now it's even more real to me today. Praying for lost and abused children the more....

This film just fantastic.. I LOVE IT!! All that kinda drama, and the way the american police/whatever treats them, it's the truth - and a hard truth!! I love this film... Can't say it enough..!! And Shannen Doherty's my favourite actor, so.. That's a bonus!!! I'd love to own this film... :o)

love how she said"next time you steal someone kid or accuse Someone prosecutor etc.JUST GET YOUR STORY RIGHT NEXT TIME because my SON has NO BRUISING/BRUISES OVER HIS BODY,THE PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN SHOW THIS,SO get your story RIGHT next time.she is so right so many parents as self were FALSELY ACCUSED.The ending show us just how RIGHT Shannon character was telling the ostensible crooked state this who falsely accused her.

LOVE IT!!! SHANNEN/KEVIN ROCKS IN THIS MOVIE.SO TRUE.what a GREAT film same as the other true story involving cps-dyfs worker as a prosecutor entitled JUST ASK MY CHILDREN another GREAT TRUE TO LIFE film effecting children mothers good parents etc who are completely innocent.love it...

Reminding our advocacy organization at GOOD MOMS FIGHT DYFS and CPS DYFS FALSIFIES RECORDS in n.j.& nationwide,where as our advocate was falsely accused as "Cy and David"in this film NOT of strangulation no.but child abuse "Excessive corporal"yet PHOTOGRAPHS left behind by child case worker.(& woman prosecuting case ALL LATER verified to have LIED LIED LIED!) her suit is currently pending under MELENDEZ in u.s. federal court as well as STATE for BRAND NEW Violations. clearly this movie show just how EVIL nefariously mean,hateful the so called ostensible "state employees"can be just to secure a WIN.built on a lie. i am so happy they were later acquitted.

reading most comments here i tear with you when i watch cry plus smile when they WON the right to go home with their other child(ren)finally was reunited.

i see most agreeing this movie was indeed almost four hours long! loll but worth it,the grandmother play by lovely Dixie carter was awesome. as Lou grant who help them so MUCH as investigation he ran help them a lot.AFTER HE READ THE ENTIRE CASE FILE HE KNEW MOM WAS Innocent as dave long movie YES! but who cares,it was a great film so TRUE TO LIFE....

later after the movie aired:

the parents saying in a interview or two later as also on Oprah many years ago and or another talk show how SHANNEN my girl play the heck out of "Cy" as her husband call her short for cindy.....she was brilliant as father Kevin Dillon part. i love him anyhow great actor in my honest opinion during EACH scene,especially the "rain scene"where as he was like what do you want me to do huh? i am doing all i can here Cy.! tell me what to do i love this movie! great passionate action making me really BELIEVE it was the REAL parents. i love the part where as FINALLY! you see their house of cards crumble"CROOKED prosecutor D.A. office etc. where as CYN find out when FINALLY able to speak to her son ask him,hey Davie"they said you took some pix or something?"he says yes mommy i took pictures of my body but NOT by the policeman mommie. by a "dr." and then Cy turn to the news guys holding press conference! i loved it cause you hear her attorney saying when reporter ask"well how do you explain the BRUISING and all of the BRUISES AS WELL AS LACERATIONS written on here as well as body chart with many markings written by dr.? i love seeing her with her female great attorney say"THEY ONLY LED YOU TO BELIEVE WHAT THEY Wanted the court and media to Believe" that THE PHOTOGRAPHS DO NOT LIE!!

I LOVE IT. AND THEY FINALLY WON LAWSUIT (naturally)and in full deserverance of a big settlement for son's pain and little new baby as the parents.just goes to show you 1 little or 2 mark on child do happen to all kids,the pix showing NO BRUISING on this child no bruise at all yet they LIED withheld the son pix. i love this movie actually i got it on right now for 100x since mid 1990s! loll love it true stories on LMN/lifetime movie network always is BEST.

adios.

i think this a well acted film.it is very heart breaking.Cindy and David's daughter Jaclyn was kidnapped and strangled.Cindy and David got the blame.Davey is taken in to care as Cindy and David was accuse of physically and sexually abusing Davey.Cindy finds out shes pregnant and gives birth to a beautiful little girl named Carly Marie Dowaliby.Carly inherited her middle name from her older sister Jaclyn.the social services take Carly away and only let them see her 4 hours a week with super vision.after they was allowed to see her full time 24-7.Carly stayed at Cindy's mum place.Cindy and David get arrested 4 killing there daughter and there families struggle to get enough money to get them out out but they do.Cindy and David went to court and Cindy was free but David was sentenced 45 yrs 4 Jaclyn's death.In the end they prove that he was innocent and they didn't find the killer but there lawyers told them to move on.also they got there children back and in the end went camping.

I think this movie was really wonderful. Yet sad at the same time. when i find out it was based on a true story, i just like the way they have the characters make it look so real. it is a really excellent movie, and sad. i hope that other movies based on true stories will be just as wonderful as this one. i can basically say that if Shannon were to act in another movie like this, i would be one of them to watch it right away. i mean, this movie probably could take your breath away and you would not even know it yet there are some sad parts to this movie, especially when Jacklyn is murdered and the parents are blamed for it. i love the way they directed it and everything. but i hope there will be other great movie just like this one!!!

Kevin Dillon(David Dowaliby),"Mob Dot Com",'03, tired very hard to act as a parent, but just did very little to support his role as a father to Shannen Doherty (Cindi Dowaliby),"Striking Poses",'99, Cindi played an excellent mother and showed her fans that she has great talent as well as wonderful looks. As soon as Edward Asner(Detective John Waters),"Elf",'93,appeared, he gave the picture a boost and brought my attention back to the story, which seemed to go on and on. Unfortunately, the police and so-called politicians in this film were shown as down to earth criminals themselves. However, the police and FBI are really our protectors in real life and with DNA do not have to go out of their way to accuse innocent citizens of a crime they did not COMMIT!

I live in Omaha and I met both Kevin Dillon and Shannen Doherty. I got a picture with each of them and I got to watch a scene being filmed. They were very nice. I know that there must be a reason why Shannen has a reputation for being somewhat of a diva, but she was nothing but nice and gracious the whole time that I was around her. In fact, when I asked her if I could get a picture of her, she insisted that I be in it with her. As for Kevin, he took time to talk with me while he was waiting to film the scene. I have always liked him better as an actor than his brother, and now I know that he is a very nice guy. I thought the movie was well done. It is amazing how they can film a movie in a location and then when you see the movie, you can't tell where it was filmed. The movie was well acted throughout. They told the story effectively. I wouldn't say it's the best I've ever seen, but it is very good.

A Chicago couple, Dillon and Dougherty, are falsely accused of killing their daughter. People begin to wonder if they did it. The police investigate and find suspicious evidence. The couple are maligned by the public and accused in the press. The cops speculate that they are Satanists and have ritually murdered their own daughter. They are charged and brought to trial. They are represented by publicity-seeking lawyers who give them bad advice and bill them for $100,000. The evidence presented against them is twisted or hidden by the police. Fabricated intimations of sexual abuse are presented. Their other child is taken away from them and put in a foster home. Dougherty is pregnant and gives birth to find her baby removed. Verdict, she didn't do it but he did. He goes to the slams with a sentence of 45 years.

In the last third of the movie, with Dillon in jail and Dougherty wondering what to do next, we see people who have been antagonistic now slowly coming to the couple's defense. Witnesses admit to having lied. Other facts are brought to light that, finally, result in Dillon's release. The killer is never found, though the movie gives us a thorough whacko as a plausible perp.

This is a weeper from beginning to end. Nothing seems to go right for the couple. Oh, there are a few happy moment, maybe a party where everyone is glad to be together and tearing up with joy, or some point of evidence in their favor is discovered and people hug one another. But it's never long before someone rushes through the door with more bad news and all the faces are frozen in tragic disbelief. (Usually a fade to block follows.) There isn't necessarily anything wrong with moving tragedies, although I can't imagine what pleasure we get out of seeing people suffer. There's plenty of tragedy in Shakespeare too. I suppose whatever we find interesting about tragic stories lies in the way they're told. "Oh, but I am Fortune's fool!" Romeo cries after killing Juliet's brother. Here we have Dougherty running in her robe through a hospital corridor, screaming, "Where's my baby???" There isn't any ambiguity or irony in the story -- as I'm sure there must have been in the real life events on which it's based. People are either good or bad here. Or else they're bad, then they turn good.

The film isn't aimed at exploring human quirkiness, or the way things work out. It's aimed at wrenching tears from the audience. The actors provide first-rate role models. I can't remember the last movie in which I saw so many tears. There are rivulets of tears. Showers of them. Cascades of them. A veritable Niagara of them. A Lake Lacrymose of them.

Well, I'll give one example of the efficiency with which the movie is crafted. Dillon and Dougherty hire a Chicago cop who works on the side as a private investigator (Ed Asner). Asner is sympathetic to them but he doesn't really accomplish much. He seems to be in the movie not because of his importance to the case but because he can provide the victimized couple with a kind of philosophy -- "Learn to live with it," which is okay -- and because he suffers from colorectal cancer, so we can watch him take his medicine, double over with pain, and finally pass away.

What's frustrating about the movie is that in focusing so intensely on the suffering of the couple, it sidesteps one of the more important issues that it raises -- the function of gossip in regulating private lives.

Gossip is a strange thing really. If we call it "gossip" it's bad, but if we call it "public opinion" it sounds acceptable, at the very least. Of course we all have convictions about issues that may or may not be justified. (As I write, Michael Jackson is once again being brought to court accused of molesting a young boy, and I wonder how many of us thrilled at the news and immediately assumed he was a pedophile.) But gossip isn't all bad either. It's like water. When it's properly controlled it's a community asset. We need gossip to keep each other in line. It helps us to maintain public order. But, like water in a flood or a tsunami, it is ruinous to a village when it rages out of control.

This is a movie that's okay if you're not looking for too much in the way of insight into human nature. It's done so cleverly that, given its goal, it's hard to argue with it.

The horror of a world seeped in injustice. This could happen anywhere, a child could be stolen in the middle of the night by a complete stranger, the kidnapper may have absolutely nothing to do with the family and a justice system COULD be completely unethical, incompetent and all the other fitting words that could be used to describe a system that could do this to a family who had gone through so much.

How can this family recover from such an event and everything additional that happened to them? Are they left distrusting the system? How has this affected their mental health? God help them and God help those who acted without fairness - they too must be suffering but at no consolation to the little girl's family.

This movie has been masterfully created to depict a story that rocked the world - only one in a long line of miscarriages of justice - this film is a great educational tool and raises a whole host of issues for discussion at the very least. Shannen Doherty and Kevin Dillon did great. Do watch it!

Why do so many made for TV films stink on ice? Why do actors like Shannen Doherty and Kevin Dillon get cast as PARENTS? This film is a dramatization of a true story - so why cast two people who are not in the least parental or even very good actors for that matter?

Kevin Dillon spends the entire film with this look of terror and bewilderment on his face. Is he being dramatic and trying to behave the way he thinks a father who was accused of murdering his own child would behave, or is he frightened that the producers of the tripe will use his real name and thereby informing the world that his movie career is officially OVER. The more I think about it, Kevin looks like he's eaten some bad clams or drank spoiled milk...it's probably the horrific dialogue.

Shannen Doherty, while very attractive, is totally miscast as the mother of the dead girl. I'm trying to think who might be even more inappropriate as the mother, and besides fellow 90210 alum, Tori Spelling, I'm coming up blank.

Ed Asner and Dixie Carter are completely wasted in this slop...As a matter of fact, it looked like Dixie WAS either wasted or phoned it in during filming. Only Hollywood could take a true, VERY dramatic story and foul it up like this. I'm amazed that so many other user comments have been positive. It's an important story that deserves MUCH better treatment than it got.

They prove that the cops, when they can't find the REAL perpetrators, always blame the parents and accuse them of sexual abuse of their kids. These movies always depict the press as a bunch of animals and have the parents coming out of court to feed the press' hunger to humiliate the grief-stricken. Hasn't anybody ever heard of a courthouse back door in these movies? Here, you have a psychic who tells them exactly what happened and WHERE the body can be found, but the police are not told and nobody heeds his findings.

The police are portrayed as blockheads who don't know what they are doing and there's always an outside detective, like Ed Asner, who comes in late on the case, believes in the parents and solves the mystery.

Also, after the parents are cleared, they don't spit in the faces of the dumb cops who put them in jail, took their kid away and accused them of killing their own child.

It looked as if I've see this film MANY times before.