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Midnight Express is a 1978 biographical film, based on the book of true accounts of Billy Hayes, a young American student sent to a Turkish prison for trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey to the US. However, it should be noted that the movie deviates from the book's accounts of the story, especially in its portrayal of Turks, to such a level that many have criticized the movie version, including Billy Hayes himself. It starred Brad Davis, Irene Miracle, Bo Hopkins, Paolo Bonacelli, Paul L. Smith, Randy Quaid, Norbert Weisser, Peter Jeffrey and John Hurt. The Oscar-winning screenplay was adapted by Oliver Stone from the book written by Billy Hayes and William Hoffer. Alan Parker directed and David Puttnam produced. The film's title is prison slang for an inmate's escape attempt.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler On October 6, 1970, after a stay in Istanbul, an American citizen named Billy Hayes is arrested by Turkish police, on high alert due to fear of terrorist attacks, as he is about to fly out of the country with his girlfriend. After being found with several bricks of hashish taped to his body - about two kilograms in total - he is sentenced to a relatively lenient four years and two months' imprisonment on the charge of drug possession. He is sent to Sagmalcilar prison to serve out his sentence. In the remand centre, he meets and befriends other Western prisoners and quickly prepares an escape plan, which fails. In 1974, after a prosecution appeal (who originally wished to have Hayes found guilty of smuggling and not possession), his original sentence is overturned by the Turkish High Court in Ankara, and he is ordered to serve a 30-year term for his crime. His stay becomes a living hell: terrifying and unbearable scenes of physical and mental torture follow one another, where bribery, violence and insanity rule the prison. Monstrous wardens cruelly force the prisoners to undergo the worst brutalities. Some prisoners work for the prison administration as 'informers'. In a fit of madness, Billy bites off the tongue of a prison informant who has notified the warden of his escape plan and also accused one of Billy's accomplices. In 1975, after being committed to the prison's insane asylum, Billy again tries to escape, this time by attempting to bribe the warden-in-chief. He ends up accidentally killing the warden, as the latter wanted to rape him, and Billy puts on an officer's uniform and manages his escape by walking out of the front door. From the epilogue, it is explained that on the night of October 4, 1975 he successfully crossed the border to Greece, and arrived home three weeks later.

Differences between the book and the film

There are some differences between the cinematographic and literary versions of Midnight Express. Major liberties were taken with the real events, which have upset viewers. Here are some obvious liberties taken with regard to the book:

• In the movie, Billy Hayes is in Turkey with his girlfriend, whereas he was alone in the original story. Nevertheless, in the movie, the love story is a main dramatic driving force.

• The rape scenes are also fictional. Billy Hayes never claimed to be raped by his Turkish wardens or that he ever suffered any sexual violence. He did engage in consensual sex, which is alluded to in the film.

• Billy Hayes never bit out anyone's tongue.

• The endings of the cinematographic and literary versions of Midnight Express differ from one another. While in the narrative, the protagonist is moved to another prison from which he escaped by sea, in the movie this passage has been replaced by a violent scene in which he unwittingly murders the warden-in-chief.

Producer's self criticism

In an interview in 1984, producer David Puttnam admitted that the film is based on a 'dishonest book'.

Screenwriter's apology

When he visited Turkey in 2004, screenwriter Oliver Stone, who won an Academy Award for his adaptation, apologized for the film, expressing regret that 'many hearts were broken in Turkey' due to the film .

Reviews

Several authors criticized the movie's inaccurate portrayal of the events.

"Midnight Express is 'more violent, as a national hate-film than anything I can remember', 'a cultural form that narrows horizons, confirming the audience’s meanest fears and prejudices and resentments'".

"The Turks I saw in Lawrence of Arabia and Midnight Express were like cartoon caricatures, compared to the people I had known and lived among for three of the happiest years of my life."

'This story could have happened in almost any country, but if Billy Hayes had planned to be arrested to get the maximum commercial benefit from it, where else could he get the advantages of a Turkish jail? Who wants to defend Turks? (They don’t even constitute enough of a movie market for Columbia Pictures to be concerned about how they are represented)'

Filming location

Although the film is set largely in Turkey, most of the location work was done in Malta, using local actors along with some Greeks and Armenians playing Turks.

Errors

The airport customs officials who search Hayes' suitcase are supposedly speaking Turkish. They are, in fact, speaking Maltese. Moreover, most of the supposedly Turkish dialogues are so inarticulate that they cannot be understood even by natives.

Awards

The film won Academy Awards for Best Music, Original Score (Giorgio Moroder) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Stone). It was also nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (John Hurt), Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture.

Billy Hayes Interviewed

An amateur interview with Hayes appeared on the website Youtube during the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, in which he described his real experiences and expressed his disappointment with the film adaptation.

In an article for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Hayes was reported as saying that the film 'depicts all Turks as monsters'.

In Popular Culture

• The scene of Billy Hayes trying to smuggle drugs was spoofed in The Simpsons, in a segment from the episode "Treehouse of Horror II", entitled Monkey's Paw. Homer tries to smuggle contraband on a flight home from Morocco with the family, although the objects strapped onto his body are not dope, but various mundane items such as a coffee mug and junk souvenirs. Homer assumes a similar pose to that of Billy when he is found out (clueless, hands in the air) by the rampant talking authorities. However, he does not go to jail, and they ask him for only 'two American dollar ' to pass the items through.
• The scene in which Billy's girlfriend Susan exposes her breasts and presses them to the glass between herself and Billy was parodied in the 1996 dark comedy The Cable Guy in which Jim Carrey opens his shirt and presses his bare nipple against the glass between himself and Matthew Broderick. He even imitates Susan's line of, 'Oh, Billy!'
• The scene is also parodied in an episode of Family Guy, "Brian, Portrait of a Dog", in which Brian is locked up. As Brian speaks on the phone to Lois, a nearby dog places itself up against the glass in a similar manner.
• The radio show Coast to Coast AM uses a song from the film's soundtrack as its theme song.
• Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails, uses quotes from the film in his song "Sanctified", mainly the words of his written apology to his family back home.
• Quote by Captain Oveur in the movie Airplane! (1980): 'Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?'
• The film is spoken of quite often throughout the British comedy series Little Britain.
• The film is also mentioned in episodes of Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere, Dharma & Greg, That 70's Show, and Entourage.

See also

• Anti-Turkism

External links

• Midnight Express at IMDb
• Oliver Stone To Make Peace with Turks
• Midnight Express truth revealed by Alinur (Part 1 - Part 2): Interview with Hayes about the movie at YouTube.
• Midnight Express Truth
• The real Billy Hayes regrets 'Midnight Express' cast all Turks in a bad light - Seattle Post Intelligencer
• Midnight Express Lie

References

1. Shipman D (1984). The Story Of Cinema. London: Hadder and Stoughton.
2. John Wakeman(ed) (1988). World Film Directors. New York: T.H. W. Wilson Co. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
3. Mary Lee Settle (1991). Turkish Reflections. New York: Prentice Hall Press.
4. Pauline Kael (1980). When the Lights Go Down. New York: Hall Rinehart and Winston.

• 1978 films
• Drama films
• Columbia Pictures films
• Drug-related films
• Films based on biographies
• Films directed by Alan Parker
• Independent films
• Thriller films
• Prison films
• Films shot in Malta
• English-language films
• Turkish-language films
• Maltese-language films
• French-language films
• Turkophobia