This was the first film I ever saw in my entire life which exposed me to cinema that was the exact opposite of the movies I was being fed at the time: happy-happy joy-joy movies within fantasy settings, where the good were so good that they could raise your blood sugar levels and the bad were big-old meanies, and the boy and the girl ran in slow motion toward each other to embrace each other and twirl. Yuck. Midnight Express opened a whole new world for me, and I am grateful for that. I especially loved John Hurt and Randy Quaid. I loved Brad Davis in some scenes. And the prisoner wearing a keffiyeh with a radio hanging form his neck? He appears for less than a minute, but he is memorable! I highly recommend it to people pushing forty still hooked on teeny-bopper movies. It will age you.