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Midnight Express
A film poster for Midnight Express.
Directed by	Alan Parker
Produced by	Alan Marshall David Puttnam
Written by	Billy Hayes (book) William Hoffer (book) Oliver Stone
Starring	Brad Davis Randy Quaid John Hurt Irene Miracle
Music by	Giorgio Moroder
Cinematography	Michael Seresin
Editing by	Gerry Hambling
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	October 6, 1978 (USA)
Running time	121 min.
Country	United States
Language	English Turkish (inarticulate) Maltese (minimal)
Budget	US$ 2,300,000
IMDb profile

Midnight Express is a 1978 film, based on Billy Hayes' book of the same name adapted into screenplay by Oliver Stone. Hayes was a young American student sent to a Turkish prison for trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey. 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. Later both Oliver Stone and Billy Hayes expressed their regret on how Turkish people were portrayed in the movie.^[1] It starred Brad Davis, Irene Miracle, Bo Hopkins, Paolo Bonacelli, Paul L. Smith, Randy Quaid, Norbert Weisser, Peter Jeffrey and John Hurt. Alan Parker directed and David Puttnam produced. The film's title is prison slang for an inmate's escape attempt.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Differences between the book and the film 3 Awards 4 Filming location and casting 5 Criticism 5.1 Billy Hayes interviewed 5.2 Screenwriter's apology 5.3 Reviews 6 In popular culture 7 See also 8 Notes 9 External links

On October 6, 1970, after a stay in Istanbul, a U.S. 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 Sağmalcılar 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.

There are some differences between the cinematographic and literary versions of Midnight Express.

• In the movie, Billy Hayes is in Turkey with his girlfriend, whereas he was alone in the original story. 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 engaged 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 kills the warden-in-chief.

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.

Although the story is set largely in Turkey, the entire movie was filmed in Malta, after permission to film in Istanbul was denied, using local actors along with some Italians, Americans, Greeks and Armenians playing Turks.^[2] The movie was also filmed in Libya.^{[citation needed]}

An amateur interview with Hayes appeared on the website YouTube recorded during the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, in which he described his real experiences and expressed his disappointment with the film adaptation.^[3]

In an article for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Hayes was reported as saying that the film 'depicts all Turks as monsters'.^[4]

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.^[5][6]

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'".^[7]

"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."^[8]

'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)'^[9]

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The scene of Billy Hayes trying to smuggle drugs was parodied in The Simpsons, in a segment from the episode "Treehouse of Horror II", entitled The Monkey's Paw. Homer tries to smuggle contraband on a flight home from Morocco with the family, although the objects strapped onto his body aren't 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 doesn't go to jail, and they ask him for only 'two American dollar [sic]' to pass the items through. It turns out Homer failed to pay a tariff on the items.
• The scene in which Billy bites off the snitch's tongue in the prison shortly after going crazy can be seen on the movie "Natural Born Killers" (directed by Midnight Express screenwriter Oliver Stone) when Mickey Knox is watching television in a motel scene.
• 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.
• Captain Oveur says to a young boy 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(It's on "I Wanna Be Sedated" for Entourage.^{[episode needed]}
• An episode of Blossom had Blossom and her friend Six discover a marijuana cigarette. Her father later has rented Midnight Express and gives a moving lecture on the fate of Billy Hayes. While the rest of her family thinks watching the film would be a good idea, Blossom doesn't want to do so as she is nervous about the marijuana.

• Midnight Express (book)
• Anti-Turkism
• Valley of the Wolves Iraq, a film which has been described as "Turkey's answer to Midnight Express."

• Midnight Express at the Internet Movie Database
• Midnight Express truth revealed by Alinur (Part 1 - Part 2): Interview with Hayes about the movie at YouTube.

v • d • e Films directed by Alan Parker

Our Cissy (1974) • Footsteps (1974) • The Evacuees (1975) (TV) • Bugsy Malone (1976) • Midnight Express (1978) • Fame (1980) • Shoot the Moon (1982) • Pink Floyd The Wall (1982) • Birdy (1984) • Angel Heart (1987) • Mississippi Burning (1988) • Come See The Paradise (1990) • The Commitments (1991) • The Road to Wellville (1994) • Evita (1996) • Angela's Ashes (1999) • The Life of David Gale (2003) • The Ice At The Bottom Of The World (2007) (in production) •

Preceded by The Turning Point

Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama 1979

Succeeded by Kramer vs. Kramer