If you've seen "Midnight Express", you've pretty much seen "Dark Holiday." There are a few differences. The victim in the earlier "Midnight Express" was a young man trying to smuggle some dope out of Turkey before being tried by a corrupt court and thrown into a Turkish prison for the rest of his life. The victim here is an innocent woman tourist (Lee Remick) who, after buying some stone souvenirs from street peddlers, is accused of trying to smuggle antiques out of the country, is tried by a vengeful court, and thrown into a Turkish prison.
It's a terrible experience. When she's first incarcerated, the other women prisoners crowd around her, plucking at her hair and clothes, breaching her American concept of personal space, standing close enough to spit in her face when they speak gibberish in their barbaric tongue. And the bathroom! Not only no privacy, but the "commodes" are nothing more than holes in the floor. Savages! At least in France, as I recall, even low-class dives provide tin footprints on each side of the hole to promote proper positioning. The food -- ugh. It looks like muddy water and Remick does one of those almost comic takes at her first mouthful. It's no help that she demands to know, "What kind of country is this?" And, "Do they discriminate against women here too?" (Reply from the American Embassy, "No -- not if they're wealthy and educated.") We get the message quickly. The Holiday Inn, this ain't.
The rest of the film, as far as I could bring myself to watch it, consists of prison intrigues, the attempts of friends and lawyers from outside to help her, the gradual individuation of the other prisoners into victimized and victimizers, tears, hysteria, greasy looking guys (every one of them with a mustache), petty theft, bureaucratic bungling of passports, indignation in assorted but stylish varieties, and -- well, you can fill in the rest.
No doubt the victim was innocent, or at least she seems to have been, and five to twenty years is rather a long sentence, even if she's guilty, for trying to finesse an old, fist-sized marble head past customs. My guess is that this is "based on a true story." I don't envy Gene Lapere her suffering. I wish, though, that the film had had loftier ambitions than reinforcing the xenophobia that so many Americans already feel. A film like this is a great chance to learn something about another culture, which is not really all THAT crummy when judged in the context of second-tier nations. ("Topkapi" gives us a slightly different picture of Turkey, police included.) What an opportunity to learn to speak Turkish, for one thing.
It's curious that for a few years there, Turkey was held up as an exemplar of corruption and olive oil. It was rather a short run, beginning with "Midnight Express" in the 1970s. Then Hollywood cast around for other villains, coming up with some curious mixtures (Russians speaking with German accents or whatever). Arabs ought now to be good enough for a whole generation.
I'd already seen "Midnight Express" so I didn't stick with this to the end. Also, I don't see much point in people's suffering for no particular point -- without somehow growing because of the pain -- unless the point of the film is that suffering is pointless. I doubt that Gene LaPere is still suffering in a Turkish jail.
It's a terrible experience. When she's first incarcerated, the other women prisoners crowd around her, plucking at her hair and clothes, breaching her American concept of personal space, standing close enough to spit in her face when they speak gibberish in their barbaric tongue. And the bathroom! Not only no privacy, but the "commodes" are nothing more than holes in the floor. Savages! At least in France, as I recall, even low-class dives provide tin footprints on each side of the hole to promote proper positioning. The food -- ugh. It looks like muddy water and Remick does one of those almost comic takes at her first mouthful. It's no help that she demands to know, "What kind of country is this?" And, "Do they discriminate against women here too?" (Reply from the American Embassy, "No -- not if they're wealthy and educated.") We get the message quickly. The Holiday Inn, this ain't.
The rest of the film, as far as I could bring myself to watch it, consists of prison intrigues, the attempts of friends and lawyers from outside to help her, the gradual individuation of the other prisoners into victimized and victimizers, tears, hysteria, greasy looking guys (every one of them with a mustache), petty theft, bureaucratic bungling of passports, indignation in assorted but stylish varieties, and -- well, you can fill in the rest.
No doubt the victim was innocent, or at least she seems to have been, and five to twenty years is rather a long sentence, even if she's guilty, for trying to finesse an old, fist-sized marble head past customs. My guess is that this is "based on a true story." I don't envy Gene Lapere her suffering. I wish, though, that the film had had loftier ambitions than reinforcing the xenophobia that so many Americans already feel. A film like this is a great chance to learn something about another culture, which is not really all THAT crummy when judged in the context of second-tier nations. ("Topkapi" gives us a slightly different picture of Turkey, police included.) What an opportunity to learn to speak Turkish, for one thing.
It's curious that for a few years there, Turkey was held up as an exemplar of corruption and olive oil. It was rather a short run, beginning with "Midnight Express" in the 1970s. Then Hollywood cast around for other villains, coming up with some curious mixtures (Russians speaking with German accents or whatever). Arabs ought now to be good enough for a whole generation.
I'd already seen "Midnight Express" so I didn't stick with this to the end. Also, I don't see much point in people's suffering for no particular point -- without somehow growing because of the pain -- unless the point of the film is that suffering is pointless. I doubt that Gene LaPere is still suffering in a Turkish jail.