Turkish Delight

If you want to watch a really scary movie on Halloween check out Midnight Express, the very flick the above promotional relic represents. The film was released in 1978 as an Oliver Stone scribed adaptation of a book by the same name. Author Billy Hayes recounts his real life horrific experience getting caught smuggling hash in Turkey. After being convicted Hayes winds up in a Turkish prison for a four + year sentence during which he and his fellow inmates were terrorized by a sadistic guard.

The classic quote from the movie Airplane! “Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?” was inspired by this film. But Turkey wasn’t laughing, given Midnight’s inaccurate depiction of their country and people damaged their international reputation. Hayes actually loved Turkey – he took issue with the fudging of truth by Stone and felt decades of remorse for the film’s damaging presentation.

In 2007 Billy Hayes returned to Turkey for a conference on democracy and global security organized by the Turkish National Police. The day following his arrival he held a press conference and apologized to the people of Turkey.

Michael J. Fox’s swag has made many cameos on the Collective with a Back to the Future gem, a novelty style The Secret of My Success tee and a more obscure Light of Day t-shirt (starring Joan Jett, wtf?) The comedy genre is nicely rounded out by a Spinal Tap Break Like the Wind 1992 “tour” tee and a classic Caddyshack t-shirt.

And as far as the drama-sports-fantasy genre goes Field of Dreams knocks one in to the corn fields every time.