The Guy From Harlem

The Guy From Harlem (1977) from Tuna

"The thing is nobody knows what Big Daddy looks like, very few people have ever seen him. All we do know is he's a white guy who is six foot two, with blond curly hair. And man, you talk about muscles... he got the biggest muscles! And he wears bands around his arms. But nobody knows what he looks like. Nobody's ever seen him."

The Guy from Harlem (1977) is about a private detective, who was, in fact, originally from Harlem, but has moved to Florida because there were too many detectives in Harlem. He is still known as "The Guy from Harlem," presumably because "The Guy from Coral Gables" just doesn't sound black and bad-ass enough.

As the film opens, we see a black woman asleep on a sofa, and a guy decides to grab her tit under her top. She gets pissed, but can't do much because her hands are tied. It seems that she has been kidnapped by the infamous Big Daddy, but there is good news for her. Big is going to kidnap another black woman, this time the wife of an African head of state, so the woman in bondage will have company.

Cut to the office of The Guy from Harlem, who is visited by a close CIA friend, and hired to guard the wife of an African head of state. Don't worry about the woman being held captive. She is just waiting for act two of this masterpiece. Don't wonder why the CIA hires an independent black guy to guard a visiting first lady. Just go with the story here. It will be less painful than thinking about it.

The Guy from Harlem manages to thwart Big Daddy and deliver the wife unharmed, if a little worn out after screwing him all night. Then the family of the kidnapped woman, gangsters all, come to Harlem Guy for help. He agrees, since there is an attractive woman involved. We are then treated to a series of fight scenes, as The Guy from Harlem walks along the edge of a park, beats up bad guys, and tosses them into the bushes. After he rescues the woman, he must spend the night with her, cause that is what Guys from Harlem do. The final act is the showdown between The Guy from Harlem and Big Daddy himself.

Pros and Cons:

Let's start with the good things about the film, as that will be easy. Many of the so-called actors and actresses sport monumental Afros ... legitimate 70s stuff. I doubt they could even get their hair into a modern car. Two actresses show breasts. Let's see ... Yes, that just about covers the good parts.
On the other side of the coin, none of the performers have any acting ability, the fight scene choreography is pitiful, and the dialogue is clearly 100% ad-libbed, and badly at that. In fact, they even ad-libbed the same lines in two successive scenes.

This film is only for masochists. If I thought for a moment that it was intentional parody, I would be forced to call it brilliant, as they absolutely mastered every aspect of bad cinema.

Believe it or not, The Guy From Harlem spawned a sequel called Super Soul Brother!

NO DVD info available

NUDITY REPORT

Patricia Fulton, as the wife of the African head of state, shows breasts in a mirror.

Cathy Davis, as the kidnap victim, shows breasts in a nice long shower scene.

The Critics Vote ...

No major reviews online.

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb readers score it 2.7/10, and all 5 comments claim it to be the worst movie ever made.

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

Our own guideline:

A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.
B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. In order to rate at least a B-, a film should be both a critical and commercial success. Exceptions: (1) We will occasionally rate a film B- with good popular acceptance and bad reviews, if we believe the critics have severely underrated a film. (2) We may also assign a B- or better to a well-reviewed film which did not do well at the box office if we feel that the fault lay in the marketing of the film, and that the film might have been a hit if people had known about it. (Like, for example, The Waterdance.)
C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by people who enjoy this kind of movie. If this is your kind of movie, a C+ and an A are indistinguishable to you.
C means it is competent, but uninspired genre fare. People who like this kind of movie will think it satisfactory. Others probably will not.
C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie, but genre addicts find it watchable. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film, but films with this rating should be approached with caution by mainstream audiences, who may find them incompetent or repulsive or both. If this is NOT your kind of movie, a C- and an E are indistinguishable to you.
D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-. Films rated below C- generally have both bad reviews and poor popular acceptance.
E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre.
F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is an F, a film made either for masochists or to torture political prisoners.