MovieChat Forums > Midnight Express (1978) Discussion > Did this movie frighten or disturb you w...

Did this movie frighten or disturb you when you first saw it....

posted 10 years ago by sonofbeach-sheet
7 replies | jump to latest

but now that you're older and wiser, it's just plain laughable? After I read Billy's book and then later on found out he'd been smuggling hash several times before he got caught, it was so obvious this was biased and a product of the angry and negative Oliver Stone! His initiation beating was real in both stories, but the junkie Max beaten in the sanitarium and left for dead and the head guard were pure fiction. Billy almost had it made when he was on the prison island doing his last few years and making a run for it!

[–] mike-848 10 years ago

Yeah, it did frighten and disturbe me and that was the whole idea. At that time Americans were ignorant of the drug laws of foreign countries and assumed that anything you did illegal would be simply brushed aside just because you were an American.

I know lottsa teen travelers that behaved themselves overseas after seeing this film.

[–] lavenderspirit2005 10 years ago

It scared the hell outta me when I saw it! Couldn't believe how much degradation and pain one man could endure.

I can't say that it's "laughable" now. I honestly never read the book by the real Billy Hayes (really want to!), so it doesn't surprise me a bit to see the film was exaggerated in certain respects.

I think what the best thing of the movie was though is that performance from Brad David. Jeez, that man was one of the BEST actors of the later 20th century. He was mesmerizing as this frightened kid who morphed into this almost feral man. Incredible.

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[–] holstenpils20 10 years ago

I always wonder why they change things from the book when making a film. I supose if they'd have shown him rowing away from the island in a fishing boat at the end it would be to much like the ending of Papillon. Killing the guard and then putting his clothes on and walking out of the front door was a bit far fetched. Hes was going to admit he had smuggled hash from turkey before but he got talked onto makin out ifwas his first time. It made you feel a bit sorry for him being a stupid kid what didnt know what he was doing. It wouldnt quite have the same feel to it if it showed he was already a big time smuggler at the begining when he was caught.

[–] fairy_depp 10 years ago

I don't know that I felt sorry for him when I thought this was the first time he'd done it. Maybe I'm looking at it with modern eyes but that wasn't just a little amount of drugs he was taking with him for his friends (as I think he says in the film)... That was a huge amount and I don't really have any sympathy for people who smuggle/deal drugs. I don't think he deserved to be treated the way he was in the film but the whole speech in the court room didn't really lead me to believe he took any of the blame on himself.. Surely he realised he'd done wrong even if he thought the punishment was too extreme?

[–] khamier 9 years ago

Umm, yeah I was 11 or 12 when I saw this movie and it scared the holy crap out of me.

It was a much different time then, being in the thick part of the cold war - there were a lot of movies about foreign jails, the movie Gulag was also one that scared me a lot.

It is funny what another person said about the portrayal of Turks in this movie and of course them seem mean and ugly, they are in jail. There was also A LOT less political correctness in 1978.

[–] okc_rn 8 years ago

I distinctly remember feeling quite disquieted after viewing the movie.

HOWEVER, After Peter Graves uttered the immortal words:

Jimmy, Have you ever been in ah, a Turkish prison?

It was never the same. . .

[–] SteveRes (474) 6 years ago

Well, Oliver Stone had a grudge, he almost had a similar experience coming back from Vietnam and was caught smuggling hash into the States through Mexico. He was imprisoned and only got out because his Father greased the palms of certain people with 15,000 dollars worth of bribes to secure a release.

I enjoy this film but if I'm honest I've always found Brad Davis' performance overrated, he's hammier than a bacon sandwich. And of course once you've heard the real story of what went down this film loses a lot of its power. His escape in the film is jaw-dropping when you see it for the first time as a kid. I remember thinking Wow, he was about to be raped by a sadistic guard and ended up killing him instead, and used his uniform to stroll out like a badass. When I found out years later he'd escaped in a rowing boat I was.... underwhelmed.