Word: billye
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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I am outraged with Richard Schickel's review of the movie Midnight Express [Oct. 16]. I just saw the film and thought it was fantastic. Obviously he has no sympathy for Billy Hayes or for the thousands of other prisoners scattered in horrible jails throughout the world.
WITH ONLY 53 days remaining on his sentence, Billy learns that the Turkish government, incensed over a diplomatic dispute with Washington, has singled him out as an "example" among foreign drug smugglers; the upshot is a new 30-year sentence, which provokes Billy to deliver an ugly tirade against the...
All this serves as a prelude to what is perhaps the most emotionally exhausting scene of Midnight Express. After the passage of half a decade, Billy's girl friend Susan (Irene Miracle) visits the prison to give Billy a photo album which conceals several $100 bills. The scene is relentlessly...
There is no question that Midnight Express is a manipulative film. The fervid indictment of the Turkish nation delivered by Billy ("For a nation of pigs, it's funny you don't eat them.") has occasioned protests of the film from Ankara and Turkish students living in the United States...
Noting such deliberate ploys overlooks one inescapable fact, however. In the end, Billy Hayes did get a raw deal from that country, or at least from its government. Retroactive sentences offend anyone's sense of justice, and it is a tribute to one Billy Hayes that he finally overcame all...