Differences Between The Book and The Film
- In the movie, Billy Hayes is in Turkey with his girlfriend when he is arrested, whereas in the original story he is alone.
- The attempted rape scene was fictionalized. Billy Hayes never claimed to have suffered any sexual violence at the hands of his Turkish wardens. He did engage in consensual sex while in prison, but the film depicts Hayes gently rejecting the advances of a fellow prisoner.
- The scene where Billy attempts to escape from the Turkish police and is recaptured by "Tex", the shadowy American agent, did not happen. 'Tex' was a real person Billy encountered after his arrest, who indeed pulled a gun on him, but that was when they were riding in the police car from the Istanbul airport to the police station after Billy attempted to sneak out of the car while it was stopped at a red traffic light. In the book's account, Tex drove Billy to the police station where he dropped him off and Billy never saw him again. It was a Turkish policeman who translated for Billy during his interrogation with the Turkish detective.
- Although Billy Hayes did spend seventeen days in the prison's psychiatric hospital in 1972, Hayes never bit out anyone's tongue, which led to him being committed to the section for the criminally insane in the film.
- In the book's ending, Hayes was moved to another prison on an island from which he escapes eventually, by swimming across the lake and then traveling by foot as well as on a bus to Istanbul and then crossing the border into Greece. In the movie this passage is replaced by a violent scene in which he unwittingly kills the head guard who is preparing to rape him. In reality, Hamidou, the chief guard, was killed in 1973 by a recently paroled prisoner, who spotted him drinking tea at a café outside the prison and shot him eight times.
Read more about this topic: Midnight Express (film)
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