Billy Hayes (writer) - Book

Book

Hayes wrote a book on his experiences, Midnight Express, which was later adapted into the 1978 film Midnight Express starring Brad Davis as Hayes. The film was directed by Alan Parker, with a screenplay by Oliver Stone. The movie differs from Hayes' account in his book. Among the differences is a scene in which Hayes kills the prison guard Hamid "the bear", the main antagonist of the story. In fact, the prison guard was killed in 1973 by a recently released prisoner, whose family Hamid insulted while beating the prisoner, years before Hayes' actual escape.

For legal reasons, neither the film nor the book had been completely accurate. In 2010, in an episode of National Geographic Channel's "Locked Up Abroad", titled "The Real Midnight Express", Hayes tells his version of the full story about being sent to the infamous Turkish Sagmalcilar prison, eventually escaping from the Marmara Sea prison on İmralı island.

Read more about this topic:  Billy Hayes (writer)

Famous quotes containing the word book:

    Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters—because girls can read as well as boys—reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?
    Mervyn Griffith-Jones (1909–1979)

    And she straiked me three times o’er her knee;
    She changed me again to my ain proper shape,
    And I nae mair maun toddle about the tree.
    —Unknown. Alison Gross. . .

    Oxford Book of Ballads, The. James Kinsley, ed. (1969)

    The Indian attitude toward the land was expressed by a Crow named Curly: “The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and the bones of our ancestors. You will have to dig down to find Nature’s earth, for the upper portion is Crow, my blood and my dead. I do not want to give it up.”
    —For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program. Montana: A State Guide Book (The WPA Guide to Montana)