Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Midnight Express by Billy Hayes Billy Hayes tells his version of 'Midnight Express' The Turkish government held Billy Hayes prisoner for five long years and Oliver Stone wrote an Oscar-winning screenplay about Hayes' hellish ordeal and eventual escape, but the convicted drug smuggler thinks the Eurasian nation took a bad rap from the 1978 film "Midnight Express." Hayes will finally get a chance to set the record straight when he tells his own story beginning at 8 tonight on the season premiere of the National Geographic Channel's "Locked Up Abroad." "I mean when you look at 'Midnight Express' the film, you don't see any good Turks at all," Hayes said in a recent interview at The Oklahoman . "It creates this overall impression that Turkey is this horrific place. Well, that's not fair to Turkey. I love Istanbul. I actually spent quite a bit of time in Istanbul before I was arrested." The film is based on Hayes' autobiography, but Hayes said even his own book doesn't tell the full story of his imprisonment in 1970 and his escape in 1975. "When I first got back, to write this book I had legal restrictions," he said. "There were things I really couldn't say, in terms of what happened in the past with my life, now that I was back in the United States, due to the legal jeopardy that it might put me in. So I had to be a little circumspect in what I said in the book." Hayes, 63, has been working as a writer, actor, producer and director in theater and film ever since. He's married to Wendy West, daughter of Jackie West, who was for many years a driving force in Oklahoma City's theater community before her death on May 4. Hayes was in Oklahoma City recently for Jackie West's memorial service. "One of the reasons that I think Jackie accepted me as a son-in-law so readily was because she loved theater," the New York native said. "When she first met me, I was an escaped convict drug smuggler, and a Yankee no less. I actually met Wendy, of all places, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978 when 'Midnight Express' was premiered there." Hayes was introduced to his future wife by her cousin, Don Chastain, an Oklahoma City-born writer-actor who had a film, "The Mafu Cage," premiering at Cannes that year. "The rest is history because we've been together ever since," Hayes said. She even stuck by him when the release of "Midnight Express" caused an angry Turkish government to issue a warrant for Hayes' arrest through Interpol. "There's an attitude in the film, as much as I love what they did and I think (director) Alan Parker is a brilliant filmmaker, and (actor) Brad Davis put his heart and soul into the part (of Hayes), he was wonderful in that," Hayes said. "(But) there's an overall effect that wasn't true to Turkey and it wasn't true to my story." For example, he never bit the tongue out of the mouth of a trusty/informant, as was depicted in one of the film's most horrific scenes, although Hayes admits he did attack and try to kill the man. Further, the accidental killing of a sadistic guard who was preparing to rape him never happened. There was such a guard, an exception to the rule as the guards went, but he was gunned down in an Istanbul cafe by a former prisoner long before Hayes' escape. And in fact, Hayes never escaped from the infamous Sagmalcilar prison, but was eventually transferred to an island prison, where he ultimately escaped by sea in a rowboat in the middle of a storm. "The escape (in the film) is so totally different than my real escape," he said. "It was almost like an afterthought in the film." In the film, Hayes (Davis) is shown donning a guard's uniform and simply walking out through the gates. Hayes says there was much more to it than that, involving a lot of running and hiding through Turkey, dying his hair different colors, and swimming a river into Greece. "I had an escape that was made for Hollywood, and they didn't use it in the film," he said. Midnight Express: The cult film that had disastrous consequences for the Turkish tourism industry. It was one of Alan Parker’s greatest movies – a gut-wrenching prison epic with an Oliver Stone script and pounding Giorgio Moroder music. Midnight Express (1978), produced by David Puttnam, won two Oscars and very quickly assumed cult status. What the filmmakers hadn’t anticipated was just how deeply they had offended the Turkish people or the disastrous consequences their film had on the country‘s tourism industry. Now, Sally Sussman’s new film Midnight Return , which premieres in Cannes today, explores the legacy of one of the most controversial movies of its era. In Midnight Express , a young American, Billy Hayes (played by the late Brad Davis), is arrested at Istanbul airport with some hash taped to his chest. He is thrown in prison and endures a traumatic time at the hands of sadistic prison guards before managing to escape. The film features some brutal scenes, most notoriously the sequence in which Billy, in huge slow motion close-up, is shown biting out the tongue of the Turkish guard. Parker later acknowledged that he got a little bit carried away with this scene which required the unfortunate Davis to spit out a pig’s tongue again and again. “I’d never seen a movie, ever, that stuck with me the way that movie did,” Californian-based Sussman recalls of when she first saw Parker’s film as a student at the University of Southern California in the late 1970s. “I just remember leaving that film shaking.” Sussman went to carve out a career as a writer and producer of soap operas such as The Young And The Restless . By coincidence, her husband Tony Morino, knew Hayes, who became a family friend. “The character of Billy Hayes in the film was passive, much more of victim. The real Billy, in prison for the five years, was a very wily character, always plotting, always planning, always hoping he could escape, which he eventually did.” There was a reason for the casting of Davis. The studio had originally wanted Richard Gere for the role but the filmmakers realised Gere was too much the hero. For the movie really to work, audiences, had to believe that Billy wasn’t going to make it. That’s why they went for a sensitive actor like Davis. In the documentary, Parker, producer Puttnam and many others involved in the original production appear on screen as does the real Hayes and two fellow prisoners held with him during his nightmare time in a Turkish jail. Sussman explores the impact of Midnight Express on Turkey and on the life of Hayes. “It [Midnight Express] became a huge part of pop culture and it also had political ramifications,” the director says. “It was probably the most hated film ever in Turkey.” The prison warders are portrayed as sadistic, lazy and corrupt. The Turkish legal system likewise comes out of the film very badly. Even the warder's children are shown as being overweight and grotesque. After interviewing all the protagonists behind the film, Sussman has concluded that Midnight Express was made with “no malice” or no intention to offend the Turks. “I can’t believe for one moment that was Alan’s motive,” she says of director Parker. “I think that was what you call an unintended consequence. I think they were creating what they thought was a somewhat loosely based story on Hayes’s life.” When Midnight Express was released, it was credited with destroying the Turkish tourism industry almost single-handed and of poisoning relations between Turkey and the West. In the documentary, Parker stands by his work, but Stone expresses his regret at the misunderstanding that arose from the film. In the documentary, Sussman, her husband and Hayes visit Turkey. Hayes discovers that he is still persona non grata. “He was very emotional being back in Turkey because he really loved Turkey and he always felt bad about its portrayal in the film,” Sussman says. “When he was back there, it was a chance for him to reassure Turkish people that ‘no. I don’t hate you’ …even if they hated him.” When Hayes visited the places where he had been incarcerated, he had to be accompanied by plain clothes Turkish policemen for his own protection. He didn’t publicise his visit. Midnight Return is screening in Cannes, just as Midnight Express did all those years ago, when Hayes attended the premiere – and met his future wife Wendy. Did Hayes hide any marijuana in his socks when he was leaving Istanbul this time round? “He might have … but he didn’t tell me!” Sussman bursts into laughter at the question. ‘Midnight Return’ screens in Cannes this week. Join our new commenting forum. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Midnight Express. Midnight Express is a 1978 drama that tells the true story of Billy Hayes (Brad Davis), a young American who is sentenced to a Turkish prison for drug smuggling and the harrowing conditions he must endure while incarcerated there. The film was directed by Alan Parker ( Mississippi Burning ) and was based on a novel that was adapted for the screen by Oliver Stone, who received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.