TV REVIEW : Lee Remick Wakes Up to Traveler’s Worst Nightmare in ‘Dark Holiday’

“Dark Holiday” is the ultimate traveler’s nightmare and a compelling female counterpart to the hit movie “Midnight Express.” The Turkish tourist industry better hire a lobbyist.

Based on the true story of American tourist Gene LePere’s shocking incarceration in a Turkish prison, this NBC movie (tonight, Channel 4, 9-11 p.m.) brings stature to the lurid genre of the women’s prison movie.

Lee Remick is a prim American vacationer who asks her Turkish tourist guide if it’s OK to wander on her own among some Roman ruins. “This is a civilized country,” the guide assures her. “You’re perfectly safe.” Among the stone ruins, intimidated by vendors, Remick buys some figurines that turn out to be antiquities and she’s arrested for attempted smuggling.

Rose Leiman Goldemberg’s taut teleplay (based on LePere’s book, “Never Pass This Way Again,” recounting her 1983 internment in Turkey) owes nothing to such smellers as “Women in Cages” and “Women in Chains.” Indeed, the stark imagery of “Dark Holiday” recalls the dungeon world of the 1978 hit “Midnight Express.”

Director Lou Antonio and several Turkish-speaking actresses create broiling prison scenes that suggest festering rats in a nest. Flashes of camaraderie are not sentimental.

The production’s flash point is an electrifying supporting performance by a striking actress named Shanit Keter, whose scabrous inmate is ripe with danger.

Remick’s numb dismay turns to burnished determination. Her blonde hair, like a flag, signals the innocent abroad.