Trivia for
Midnight Express (1978) More at IMDbPro »

• Although the movie is supposed to be based on and has been credited as a "true story", it has been clearly indicated by Billy Hayes himself 20 years after its release, that what is presented in the movie is a very exaggerated and fictional version of what happened to him in the prison in Istanbul, Turkey.
  
  
• Both Richard Gere and John Travolta were considered for the part of Billy Hayes.
  
  
• According to his book, Brad Davis had a drug problem of his own while promoting this film.
  
  
• Although set in Turkey, the movie was actually filmed at Fort St.Elmo, Valletta, Malta after permission to film in Istanbul was denied.
  
  
• First movie to win an Oscar for "Best Original Score" featuring a totally synthesized music score.
  
  
• Turkish government officials greatly resented the portrayal of their country in the movie, and made this known to the media in general after the film's release.
  
  
• The scene in which Brad Davis' character bites out the tongue of a fellow inmate upset the crew so much that they all walked off the set, leaving Alan Parker to shoot it with his two actors. For the scene, Davis carried a pig's tongue around in his mouth.
  
  
• Oliver Stone's original script detailed Billy Hayes' escape over the mountains, but the the small budget did not allow for the filming of these scenes.
  
  
• In a scene at the airport, the customs officer (played by the late Joe Zammit Cordina) supposedly speaks Turkish. However in reality, he is speaking Maltese after he forgot his lines in Turkish and decided to use Maltese.
  
  
• According to Alan Parker, this was the most grueling shoot of his career - 53 days with cast and crew working 6-day weeks.
  
  
• In an attempt to really get into character, John Hurt stopped bathing for most of the 53-day schedule and reeked so badly in time, most of his colleagues avoided being close to him.
  
  
• Producer David Puttnam has mixed feelings about this project. He was happy with the finished cut but when he saw the film with a paying audience at a late night showing in New York, he was deeply disturbed by the audience’s reaction to some scenes. They were cheering and clapping instead of the desired effect of being repulsed by the characters actions.
  
  
• Banned (and never released theatrically) in Turkey, until 1992 when the private TV channel HBB broadcast it.
  
  
• The group of police which are on hand to search each passenger before they board the jet was another attempt to portray Turkey as an authoritarian regime. But in reality, this thorough search of each passenger was a reaction to the PLO hijacking (and subsequent destruction) of 4 passenger jets just 4 weeks prior to the event portrayed at the beginning of the film (October 6, 1970). There are 2 somewhat oblique references to this event early in the film: a headline on the paper that Susan is reading on the bus that takes them to the plane ("Nixon Outraged at Palestinian Hijackers"), and again in the car after his arrest when Tex says "You decided to fly at a bad time...guerrillas all over the place, blowin' up planes...4 planes in 4 days".
  
  

• SPOILER: Billy Hayes courteously declines the amorous advances of one of his fellow inmates. In actuality, the real Billy Hayes had an ongoing affair with this person, not just a brief encounter in the shower.
  
  
• SPOILER: At the end of the movie, Billy Hayes killed the head guard, Hamidou, by pushing him into a clothes rack and impaling him. In real life, it wasn't Billy Hayes that killed the head guard but a recently paroled prisoner, where he spotted Hamidou drinking tea at a café outside and shot him eight times, killing him.
  
  

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