Billy Hayes and the Real Midnight Express | Manolith". Archived from the original on 2010-07-03 . Retrieved 2010-10-10. The quote 'Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?', in the American comedy film Airplane! (1980), is a reference to Midnight Express. [35]

Si bien yo me esperaba "más acción", por así decirle, creo que sucede todo muy rápido al final, pero eso no quiere decir que no me gustó. I can't work up any sympathy for the author, a bisexual smuggler who brought his ordeal on himself through his selfishly motivated attempt to smuggle dope out of Turkey. My sympathies were with his parents who were brought to the brink of bankruptcy through their efforts to free him. Hayes has now written the sequel books, "Midnight Return (Escaping Midnight Express)" and "The Midnight Express Letters--from a Turkish Prison, 1970-1975", a collection of the original letters written home to family and friends during his imprisonment" There was a film, screenplay by the wonderful Oliver Stone, which brought the descriptions in the book to life and made the escape much more exciting, as films do. Countries, like people, generally like to show the world only their good side and people certainly sometimes feel shame and humiliation when their unknown, other, darker side is exposed. Turkey certainly felt that the book, and to a much greater extent the film, harmed its international reputation. I wonder if it affected the prison system of the country or they were just careful to have some new, modern, model prisons to show journalists, the UN and other concerned organisations when they come calling?Oliver, whose films are frequently criticized for straying from the truth, claims that if he knew the full story, he would not have taken the job — the job that won him his first Academy Award and dramatically advanced his career. Yeah, right. He says that his sense of truth was offended. Where was his sense of truth when he substituted what I actually said to the Turkish Court during sentencing, which was that I couldn’t agree with them, all I could do was forgive them, with his rabid screed against Turkey, having my character call them “a nation of pigs” and vowing to “f**k all their sons and daughters”? This scene, along with Oliver’s completely concocted scene where I kill a Turkish guard, which I did NOT do, led to the Turkish government issuing an Interpol warrant against me that stood for the next 20 years. Not issued when I escaped or when my book came out, but when they heard Oliver’s ranting words coming from my character’s mouth in the film. Not that it mattered to him, apparently. Hayes goes into details over what happened when and after he was arrested for attempting to smuggle 2 kilos of hashish out of the country, the people he met and befriended (or antagonized in a couple of cases) in prison, the adjustments he made in adapting to prison life, the endless boredom of just having to wait, wait, wait and rot while the courts decided his fate, the devastation he experienced when his original 4 year sentence for possession is extended to 30 years. Unlike the movie,in which he condemned the whole nation as 'pigs' Hayes actually tells the judges that he forgives them. But both the book and the movie were very damaging to U.S.-Turkish relations. Americans, as with most people, are only too willing to blame foreigners for their problems. The drug problem was already headline material at the time; President Nixon had declared “war” on the drug trade. I really shudder at those words now. It really is a powerful story and another important difference....the real Billy takes responsibility for what he did and recognizes what he did was wrong....in sharp contrast to the Billy in the movie who is little more than a whiner who never really owns up to what he did or the fact that he broke the law. I sympathize with the real man much more than the one portrayed by Brad Davis. A few weeks later, Billy's father (Mike Kellin) arrives and embraces him, forgiving his mistake and introduces him to Stanley Daniels (Michael Ensign) of the American Consulate and his requested lawyer Yesil to defend him. Yesil is a fat, shifty, greasy-haired, chain-smoking, ever-smiling man with gold teeth that promises Billy to get him the right court and judge and not to worry. Their goal is to get bail for Billy and a fake passport to get him across to Greece to leave.

This movie is based loosely on Billy Hayes' book Midnight Express about his five year experience in the Turkish prison system. The movie was exaggerated for dramatic effect. Billy Hayes, author of the autobiographical book “ Midnight Express,” on which the film directed by Alan Parker and written by Oliver Stone was based, disagreed with several of the assertions made in Stone’s new book, “Chasing the Light.”

Billy Hayes είναι από εκείνες που κάθε άνθρωπος εύχεται να μην του τύχει και διαδραματίζεται τη δεκαετία του 1970. Ξέρετε παιδιά των λουλουδιών, χίπηδες, ο πόλεμος του Βιετνάμ και γενικά σε μια δεκαετία όπου όλα ήταν εντελώς διαφορετικά σε σχέση με το σήμερα. Ο Hayes είναι ένας από τους νέους εκείνης της εποχής που ακόμα αμφιταλαντεύεται, παρόλο που φοιτά σε πανεπιστημιακή σχολή, από κάπως αυστηρή οικογένεια που ναι μεν θέλει να ζήσει τη ζωή του χωρίς περιορισμούς και πρέπει αλλά και δεν θέλει να απογοητεύσει ��ους δικούς του, ειδικά τον πατέρα του, που μια ζωή έκανε οικονομίες για να μπορέσουν τα παιδιά του να σπουδάσουν. A little later, Billy is forced to stand naked with the customs officers staring and grinning at him and an unidentified southern American man (Bo Hopkins), presumably an agent with the DEA, walks in. (Note: the mysterious American is never named, but Billy refers to him as 'Tex' due to his strong Texan accent.) "Tex" is calm and kind with Billy and takes him to a local police station where he is is interrogated where Tex translates for a local Turkish detective whom offers Billy freedom if he points out who sold him the hash. A made-for-television documentary about the film, I'm Healthy, I'm Alive, and I'm Free (alternative title: The Making of Midnight Express), was released on January 1, 1977. It is seven minutes long, and features commentary from the cast and crew on how they worked together during production, and the effort it took from beginning to completion. It also includes footage from the creation of the film, and Hayes's emotional first visit to the prison set. [7] Differences from the book [ edit ] Flinn, John (9 January 2004). "The real Billy Hayes regrets 'Midnight Express' cast all Turks in a bad light". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 22 October 2012 . Retrieved 14 January 2012.