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Guy from Harlem
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by Xenon/Lions Gate
Sales Rank: 3223
Price: $14.99
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Al Conners (Loye Hawkins) is a private eye who must save a kidnapped girl from crime syndicate types. Unfortunately, whoever made this pile of rancid matter had no idea what the basics of film-making are! Of course, there's loads of humor to go around, including the plaid polyester suits, platform shoes, towering afros, idiotic fight scenes, and "love" scenes w/ no nudity! Just hot babes in long, thick nightgowns that my granny would find too conservative! And check out that soundtrack! It's a stone groove, baby
Viewer Reviews
"The Guy From Harlem" is a terrible mid-1970s "thriller" starring nobody. The biggest features of the film are gigantic afros that barely fit through doorways, hideous polyester clothing, and otherworldly interior decorating from the most tasteless of all decades. The film begins with Wanda, a young African-American girl who has been kidnapped by Big Daddy's evil yet intensely stupid white gang. Next you are supposed to forget that, because the CIA commissions private investigator and mercenary bodyguard Al Connors (Loye Hawkins) to guard Mrs. Ashanti, the wife of an African "Chief of State," who happens to have the biggest afro of the entire cast and speak with a Harlem accent. Of course the first thing she needs is a massage, which leads to the queasiness of the audience when Al observes the proceedings for security reasons. Big Daddy wants to kidnap Mrs. Ashanti, too, but Al is too quick. Watch for the fight scene in the hotel room which contains the worst fight choreography I have seen in many years. Also watch for the dowdiest nightgowns in film history.
I should note that the film is technically horrendous: it is terribly written, poorly acted (people blow lines and they use the footage without question, people appear to be reading cue cards, etc.), and has essentially no production values. The film (at least this print) has many cuts and splices, numerous flaws, and a very noisy soundtrack which has a noise appearing at random intervals and lasting for several minutes at a time which sounds like a cross between a small, flatulent aircraft and a vibrating bed. This noise often overpowers the dialogue, though, so in that sense it's not an entirely bad development. Between the action scenes there are lots of scenes of driving around in a big red Cadillac, and an endlessly repeated song which consists largely of a bass guitar line and the lyrics "Get down!" and "That cat's a bad dude!"
Eventually a trio of emissaries comes to Al and ask him to take some money to Big Daddy to get Wanda (remember her?) back. Al takes the job and we never return to the whole CIA-Mrs. Ashanti axis of the film. In rescuing Wanda there is a lot of very bad karate, endless scuffling around, a lot of racist name calling from both factions and pretentious dialogue like "I want you to take a message to Big Daddy. Tell him he's next." Al not only gets Wanda back, but he rips Big Daddy off of his ransom money, which leads to a mano-a-mano battle between a shirtless Big Daddy and Al in the middle of nowhere. No points for guessing how the battle ends.
This film is incoherently made, has wretched acting, and embodies everything that was intrinsically wrong with racially-motivated 1970s films. The technical aspects of the film match the artistic elements, and I can't recommend this film to anyone for any reason.
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Guy from Harlem
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