The Guy from Harlem (1977) | (VHS) | SEALED

**USA ONLY**

Title: The Guy from Harlem (1977)

Alternate Title: The Good Guy from Harlem

Genre: Action

Plot Synopsis
A tough, street-savvy private investigator relocated to Florida takes on a high-stakes assignment from the CIA: safeguarding the wife of an African head of state while undercover at a Miami hotel. Soon the case morphs into a personal mission when a local crime boss’s daughter is abducted. Navigating shady gyms, leisure-suit-laden henchmen and shady spa hideouts, the investigator confronts the kidnapper known only as “Big Daddy,” setting up a final showdown to rescue the girl and settle the score once and for all.

Cast and Crew

• Director: Rene Martinez Jr.

• Writers: Gardenia Martinez

• Cast:

  • Loye Hawkins as Al Connors

  • Cathy Davis as Wanda De Bauld

  • Patricia Fulton as Mrs. Ashanti

  • Wanda Starr as Sue

  • Steve Gallon as Harry De Bauld

IMDb Link: The Guy from Harlem (1977)

Reviews from Letterboxd

1. Lexzilla – ★★★☆☆
   “There’s a moment in this where two guys are trying to act like they’re having a fight, but one of them gives up and just ends up doing a forward-roll instead. It’s both terrible and amazing, and tells you quite a lot about what to expect from this low-budget Blaxploitation flick. Wooden, stilted delivery but inexplicably done with verve and a willingness to have a go, long static shots of parked cars, eye-searing seventies interior design, inexplicably slow phone calls, some fabulous flared suits and a funked-out soundtrack. There’s plot here too, a story about a private eye that has to protect a president’s wife, rescue a kidnapped sister and deal with Harlem-based hoodlums. And damn if I didn’t find myself somewhat hooked.”

2. Brian Saur – ★★★½☆
   “If Ed Wood had directed BLACK BELT JONES, the result might look something like THE GUY FROM HARLEM. Theme song is mind blowing.”

3. Curtis – ★★★★☆
   “I’m still waiting for the inevitable 4K restoration of this classic. The movie this reminds me of most is the Ben Murphy vehicle Riding with Death. Like two episodes of some never-produced TV series, fused into a quasi-functional motion picture, The Guy From Harlem has Miami-based PI Al Connors taking on international assassins and a local gangster called Big Daddy… all while scoring with every lady in sight. It’s gloriously low budget and unintentionally hilarious. With or without the Rifftrax accompaniment, The Guy from Harlem is a bizarrely enjoyable viewing experience.”

4. Justin LaLiberty – ★★★☆☆
   “On paper, this has a lot in common with the same year’s Petey Wheatstraw and Abar, both inherently cheap blaxploitation detours into sub-genres that feel out of the genre’s reach but Rene Martinez Jr. made something that transgresses the notions of genre to a point of adopting a new visual language, putting it in the company of James Bryan’s similarly beguiling, and borderline incoherent, trash spectacle Lady Streetfighter, seemingly existing solely to showcase the whackiest martial arts choreography you’ve ever seen — all of this to distract the audience from one major caveat: this doesn’t even take place in Harlem.”

5. k – ★★☆☆☆
   “The guy from Harlem is a rather poor blaxploitation film, offering wooden acting (with flubbed lines!), mild and poorly staged action choreography, equally mild and poorly staged s&x scenes, and painfully boring cinematography, largely comprised of stationary wide shots of hideously ’70s interiors. The plot centers on the titular guy from Harlem (as he states every few sentences) as he takes on a job to protect the “wife of an African Chief of State” from a druglord(?) named Big Daddy; he then rescues the daughter of one of Big Daddy’s business rivals. The entire time, he is also followed around by a funky, repetitive song that hammers in that he is, yup, the guy from Harlem… The film takes place in Miami, by the way.”

Meta Description:
A low-budget 1977 blaxploitation action flick featuring a sharply styled Miami-based PI, globe-trotting bodyguard mission, kidnapped heiress, and funky seventies swagger.