{"id":3441,"date":"2024-08-28T16:27:13","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T16:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3441"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:24:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:24:13","slug":"the-guy-from-harlem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/28\/the-guy-from-harlem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guy from Harlem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Guy from Harlem <\/strong>(1977)\u00a0\u00a0 International Cinema\/Action\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, brief nudity, sexual content, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rene Martinez Jr.\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gardenia Martinez\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Cecil Graham\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rafael Remy\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Loye Hawkins, Cathy Davis, Patricia Fulton, Wanda Starr, Steve Gallon, Laster Wilson, Wayne Crawford (as \u201cScott Lawrence\u201d), Vaughan Harris, Richie Vallon, Michael Murrell, Angela Schon, Douglas Ferraro, Fernando Yi, Colleen Martinez, Hyatt Hodgdon.\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0In simple terms, The Guy from Harlem<\/strong>\u00a0is the poor man\u2019s Shaft. It\u2019s the K-Mart version of the classic blaxploitationer starring Richard Roundtree as the baddest, grooviest PI in Harlem. The Guy from Harlem<\/strong>\u00a0stars 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\u2019t hire this joker to find my dog.<\/p>\n

\u00a0How bad is The Guy from Harlem<\/strong>? It makes Dolemite look like Citizen Kane. It\u2019s as inept as they come. Although I reviewed it in the past, I couldn\u2019t remember a single frame of it when I stumbled on my review in the archives. Thankfully, it\u2019s currently streaming on Amazon Prime (as The Good Guy from Harlem), so I was able to refresh my memory with another viewing. It\u2019s still awful, but I\u2019m not sorry I put in the time and effort to rewatch it. It\u2019s not just bad, it\u2019s hilariously bad. I laughed more at it than the recent Coming 2 America.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The oddest thing about The Guy from Harlem<\/strong>\u00a0is 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 \u201can African nation\u201d. She\u2019s 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\u2019s directive about not putting the moves on his attractive client. It isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We 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\u2019ll pay Connors handsomely to arrange for the release of his daughter Wanda (Davis) who\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What\u2019s the connection between the two stories? The opening scene shows a henchman informing Wanda that she\u2019ll soon be joined by an African princess. The men that attempt to grab her at the hotel work for Big Daddy. That\u2019s literally it. It\u2019s never brought up again once the princess is no longer in Connors\u2019 care. I get the feeling the intro scene was filmed for the sole purpose of tying the two storylines together. I can\u2019t prove it, but it feels like a sound theory.<\/p>\n

\u00a0No question about it, The Guy from Harlem<\/strong>\u00a0is 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\u2019s clear none of the actors know martial arts. They\u2019re faking every bit of it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There’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\u2019d really like to know is how a woman born and raised in Africa speaks perfect accent-free English? There\u2019s 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\u2019s no payoff. The clothes in this movie are hideous even by 70s standards. The generic funk music containing lyrics like \u201cGet down!\u201d and \u201cHe\u2019s a bad dude!\u201d is repetitive. Shall I continue?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The delightfully dreadful The Guy from Harlem<\/strong> 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 <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There’s absolutely nothing else to say about The Guy from Harlem<\/strong>. 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\u2019t 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\u2019s very entertaining. I\u2019m not the only one who thinks so either. Unbeknownst to me until very recently, The Guy from Harlem<\/strong> got the RiffTrax treatment. It\u2019s also showing on Amazon Prime. A dishonor like that surely makes it worth at least one viewing, does it not?\"\"<\/p>\n

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The Guy from Harlem (1977)\u00a0\u00a0 International Cinema\/Action\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, brief nudity, sexual content, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rene Martinez Jr.\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gardenia Martinez\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Cecil Graham\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rafael Remy\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Loye Hawkins, Cathy Davis, Patricia Fulton, Wanda Starr, Steve Gallon, Laster Wilson, Wayne Crawford (as \u201cScott Lawrence\u201d), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Guy-from-Harlem-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3441"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5436,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions\/5436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}