Midnight Express (1978 Film)

Written for the screen by Oliver Stone, Midnight Express is a brutal tale of American tourist Billy Hayes. Hayes is harshly sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish prison for smuggling drugs. Brad Davis stars as Billy Hayes in this 1978 movie based on Hayes' autobiography.

American tourist Billy Hayes and his girlfriend Susan are about to wrap up their trip to Turkey when customs finds a large amount Hashish in Billy's possession. Billy is arrested and put to trial for drug possession. He is sentenced to 4 years in prison, and when he appeals the decision, the judge decides that Billy is guilty of drug smuggling and sentences him 30 years in prison. Even attempts by the U.S. embassy aren't enough to gain him leniency.

Billy has a harrowing experience in the Turkish prison. The other inmates are savage and brutal; rape is common, and the food is mostly inedible. This experience is only tempered by a few acquaintances he makes with his individually quirky fellow inmates Jimmy, Max, and Erich.

Billy reaches the limits of his endurance of the conditions of the prison and decides it's high time to take the "Midnight Express" and escape. He has the support of his friends, but to his misfortune the warden finds out about his escape plans.

• Brad Davis as Billy Hayes

• Irene Miracle as Susan

• Randy Quaid as Jimmy Booth

• John Hurt as Max

• Norbert Weisser as Erich

"Horrific scenes of prison brutality and powerful acting by Brad Davis as the American Billy Hayes help make up for the shortcomings in Alan Parker's sensationalistic tale and Oliver Stone's factual inaccuracies and narrow stereotyping of the Turks."—Emanuel Levyhttp://emanuellevy.com/search/details.cfm?id=12956

"Searing and unforgettable. A harrowing descent into a real-life hell that's so relentlessly intense it will leave you feeling drained."—Chuck O'Leary, Fantastica Daily http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/midnight_express/

"Suffers from the kind of excess -- and hyperbole -- writer Oliver Stone brought to his own films as director."—Jake Euker, F5 (Wichita, KS) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/midnight_express/