Midnight Return (Sally Sussman-Morina, 2015): Turkey, USA, UK

Reviewed by Wayne Derossett.  Viewed at the 2016 Santa Barbara Film Festival, Friday, Feb. 12 at 8:20 PM, in the Metro 2  theater.

Image by Wayne Derossett (Canon 5DII, EF 70-200 f2.8 IS, in very low light conditions)

In attendance at the theater during the screening of this film were Sally Sussman-Morina, the director of Midnight Return, and Billy Hayes, the original subject of both the book Midnight Express (Dutton, 1977) and movie based on the Oliver Stone screenplay, Midnight Express, (directed by Alan Parker, 1978).

The original movie Midnight Express was based on a book by the same name written by Billy Hayes, only three months after his escape from a Turkish prison.  IMDB claims in its movie listing of Midnight Express it is “The true story of Billy Hayes, an American college student who is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison.”

Midnight Return serves to correct this error by spelling out several story inaccuracies created by screenwriter Oliver Stone, and to correct a few facts left Hayes left out of his 1977 book.

There’s even a website to track the book and movie differences:  http://thatwasnotinthebook.com/diff/midnight-express#comment

Hayes started to make the real truth known by penning a new book, The Midnight Express Letters: From a Turkish Prison 1970-1975, published in 2013.  Sussman expands on this and creates a new documentary film that serves to set the record straight and mend the horrific Turkish image of mistreatment portrayed in Stone’s film.

But, as it turns out, Hayes was not the fair curly-haired innocent he claimed to be.  According to his personal account in the theater, this was in fact his fourth drug smuggling attempt.  Airport security procedures changed dramatically after Palestinian extremists blew up four hijacked airliners, and security officers started checking passengers for hidden explosives.

And there was Hayes, standing in line, with four pounds of hashish taped to his body.  He tried and convicted and sentenced to four years and three months in prison, but later his sentence was changed to life.

At his conviction, he addressed the judge saying, “All I can do is forgive you,” but in the movie, he calls them “a nation of pigs” and says, “I fuck your sons and daughters.” And not once in the movie was any good thing portrayed about any Turkish citizen.

“That’s the reason why people hated Turkey after this,” Billy says.

His dramatic escape was nothing like the movie.  In fact, it was more daring, and required much more planning and physical strength.  In prison, he spent his time doing yoga and was in top physical health. When the opportunity presented itself, he stole a row-boat from a fishing boat waiting out a storm and rowed twenty miles to freedom.

The documentary film did set the record straight and exonerated the Turks treatment of him.  It changed Billy Hayes from the most despised person in Turkey to one that was actually invited back as an honored guest.