It was produced and directed by David Cahill, and is based on the real life murder of Jim Smith, the so-called Shark Arm case.
Hazel is a middle aged school mistress, the daughter of "Ma" Willis who runs an illegal betting business behind the cafe she owns.
[1] It was the first time a script from Playhouse 90 had been adapted for Australian television and involved the largest cast ever assembled for an ATN 7 teledrama, with 20 speaking parts and 40 extras.
[5][6] Director David Cahill and set designer Geoff Wedlock flew to Cairns to take photographs and sketches of the courthouse where the trial took place in the story.
[11] Patrick Brady, who was tried and acquitted in the actual Shark Arm case, sought an injunction restraining ATN Channel 7 from televising a court scene from the play.
[12] The scene had been shown in advertisements, in which a witness being examined by a barrister was describing how a shark that had been caught and placed in an aquarium had disgorged a human arm.
The critic for the Sydney Morning Herald thought "the conventional materials of courtroom melodrama are worked over neatly, but without special distinction in talk or characterisation" in the play which featured "a cast that was not only huge in numbers but rich in talent."
The production values are tremendous, and most of the cast are outstanding... it’s a splendid piece of television, bold, entertaining, and interesting to watch, and all associated with it had every right to be proud.