Did this movie frighten or disturb you when you first saw it….
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Midnight Express
sonofbeach-sheet — 12 years ago(January 03, 2014 11:14 PM)
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!
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mike-848 — 12 years ago(January 05, 2014 07:45 AM)
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 — 12 years ago(March 08, 2014 10:38 PM)
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.
My YouTube devoted to all things
NOSTALGIA
http://www.youtube.com/user/RETROGEMS -
holstenpils20 — 11 years ago(April 24, 2014 04:09 PM)
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.
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fairy_depp — 11 years ago(October 17, 2014 03:32 PM)
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?
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khamier — 11 years ago(March 15, 2015 08:48 PM)
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. -