The Guy from Harlem (1977) International Cinema/Action RT: 88 minutes Rated R (language, violence, brief nudity, sexual content, drugs) Director: Rene Martinez Jr. Screenplay: Gardenia Martinez Music: Cecil Graham Cinematography: Rafael Remy Release date: September 1977 (US) Cast: Loye Hawkins, Cathy Davis, Patricia Fulton, Wanda Starr, Steve Gallon, Laster Wilson, Wayne Crawford (as “Scott Lawrence”), Vaughan Harris, Richie Vallon, Michael Murrell, Angela Schon, Douglas Ferraro, Fernando Yi, Colleen Martinez, Hyatt Hodgdon. Box Office: N/A
Rating: *
In simple terms, The Guy from Harlem is the poor man’s Shaft. It’s the K-Mart version of the classic blaxploitationer starring Richard Roundtree as the baddest, grooviest PI in Harlem. The Guy from Harlem stars some guy named Loye Hawkins as Al Connors, a Miami-based PI who originally hails from Harlem (hence the title). Let me tell you, I wouldn’t hire this joker to find my dog.
How bad is The Guy from Harlem? It makes Dolemite look like Citizen Kane. It’s as inept as they come. Although I reviewed it in the past, I couldn’t remember a single frame of it when I stumbled on my review in the archives. Thankfully, it’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime (as The Good Guy from Harlem), so I was able to refresh my memory with another viewing. It’s still awful, but I’m not sorry I put in the time and effort to rewatch it. It’s not just bad, it’s hilariously bad. I laughed more at it than the recent Coming 2 America.
The oddest thing about The Guy from Harlem is its structure. It has two distinct plots connected only the barest of thread. Connors is hired by the CIA to protect a visiting dignitary (Fulton) from “an African nation”. She’s the wife of an African head of state and requires round-the-clock protection from potential kidnappers. Connors and the dignitary check into a hotel as husband and wife where he immediately violates the CIA guy’s directive about not putting the moves on his attractive client. It isn’t long before a couple of hoods show up to try and take her. Our hero fights them off and spirits the princess to the apartment of one of his girlfriends, a white girl named Jo Ann (Schon), to hide out until the next day.
We find out this part of the story is over when Connors returns to his office to inform his sassy secretary (Starr) his client has been delivered safely to her husband. Moments later, crime boss Harry De Bauld (comedian Gallon) barges in with a proposition. He’ll pay Connors handsomely to arrange for the release of his daughter Wanda (Davis) who’s been held for ransom by his main business rival, the never-seen crime lord Big Daddy (Lawrence/Crawford, Jake Speed). Nobody but close members of his inner circle has ever laid eyes on this enigmatic but dangerous fellow. Connors takes the case and proceeds to handle it like any other blaxploitation action hero, with fists, feet and guns.
What’s the connection between the two stories? The opening scene shows a henchman informing Wanda that she’ll soon be joined by an African princess. The men that attempt to grab her at the hotel work for Big Daddy. That’s literally it. It’s never brought up again once the princess is no longer in Connors’ care. I get the feeling the intro scene was filmed for the sole purpose of tying the two storylines together. I can’t prove it, but it feels like a sound theory.
No question about it, The Guy from Harlem is truly bad! I mean, really truly bad! The production values are sloppy. It looks like it was made on a budget not exceeding $50. The editing is especially bad. Scenes are thrown together without any sense of continuity or cohesiveness. The fight scenes are clumsy. I’ve seen more convincing fight choreography in Three Stooges shorts. It’s clear none of the actors know martial arts. They’re faking every bit of it.
There’s no visible talent on either side of the camera. Director Rene Martinez Jr. makes Rudy Ray Moore look like Orson Welles. Almost none of the actors have ever made another movie. Lead actor Hawkins is now the lead singer of his own jazz/blues/R&B band. I certainly hope his singing is better than his acting. What I’d really like to know is how a woman born and raised in Africa speaks perfect accent-free English? There’s not even a hint of one. The heinous dialogue is rivaled only by the stilted delivery. A bedroom exchange between Connors and the African dignitary sounds like a sex set-up from a bad 70s porno expect there’s no payoff. The clothes in this movie are hideous even by 70s standards. The generic funk music containing lyrics like “Get down!” and “He’s a bad dude!” is repetitive. Shall I continue?
The delightfully dreadful The Guy from Harlem fails on every level except unintentional comedy. With its poorly-staged action scenes that are far and few in between and stock characters including a white villain, it is positively laughable. How can you not laugh at a movie with a closing freeze-frame shot of two black dudes doing a soul handshake? I defy you to keep a straight face when one character calls another a “jive turkey”. The word “honky” comes up too. LOL! You have to love 70s urban slang. The Guy from Harlem is so ineptly made there’s nothing to do but laugh the whole thing off as some kind of practical joke. Could the makers really be this incompetent? It would appear so.
There’s absolutely nothing else to say about The Guy from Harlem. It’s bad even by the low, low standards of cheap Z-level blaxploitation movies made to be seen at sleazy urban grindhouse theaters that exclusively show triple bills. It’s possible to make an entertaining low-budget blaxploitation movie. Look no further than Cleopatra Jones and Truck Turner. Of course, both had larger budgets and could afford bigger stars- e.g. Shelley Winters in Cleopatra Jones. Martinez couldn’t even afford to hire some washed-up, D-list actor to play the villain. It looks, sounds and embodies the essence of cheap. At the same time, it’s very entertaining. I’m not the only one who thinks so either. Unbeknownst to me until very recently, The Guy from Harlem got the RiffTrax treatment. It’s also showing on Amazon Prime. A dishonor like that surely makes it worth at least one viewing, does it not?
