That’s one fact the “Midnight Express” publicity machine never thought to pass on.It was one of the travel nightmares of the 1970s, along with being hijacked to Cuba or being stuck behind the Iron Curtain – being thrown into a Turkish prison and left to rot. The film also reveals that, contrary to the official line of the film (and the book Hayes co-wrote on which it was based), Hayes now admits that he in fact was a drug smuggler who’d made three previous successful trips before he was caught. The only person truly upset about the way things turned out was Hayes, and “Midnight Return” deals not only with his feelings but also detailing how and why he was imprisoned and the specifics of his legendary escape. I stand behind the film.” Parker takes perhaps the most extreme position, blandly announcing “as a work of art that’s the way it is.” Guber insists “nobody was making an anti-Turkish film,” while Stone claims, “I never felt I insulted Turkey. Though the filmmakers are well aware (how could they not be?) of the anger Turks worldwide continue to feel about the way the film depicts their country and their culture, they to a man studiously refuse to venture beyond various forms of self-justification. French critics were aghast, labeling it racist and “an insult to the film medium” but the resulting fuss helped gin up publicity for the picture.

Things got more intense when “Midnight Express” was invited to Cannes and promptly labeled the most violent film ever to play in competition. They even tiptoed out at night so the writer couldn’t hear them leave and perhaps ask to join them at dinner.

Stone and the producers, for instance, relate how Brits Puttnam and Parker studiously ignored Stone though he was writing the script in their offices. The juicy inside Hollywood stories they tell provide “Midnight Return’s” most engaging moments. One of the thrusts of “Midnight Return” is his attempt to come to terms with that national animosity and to make restitution as much as he can.īefore the documentary gets to that, however, it devotes a big chunk of its running time to describing how the film got made in the first place via interviews with Stone, Parker, producer David Puttnam, executive producer Peter Guber and others. This seems to have come as a shock to Hayes, who comes across here as energetic, personable and self-involved.

Midnight Express by Billy Hayes