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I saw this movie almost 30 years ago, shortly after I participated in the filming of it. I don't remember much, but I remember thinking it was pretty good considering it was done with amateurs and almost no budget! But everything is relative, and given the choice today, I would have to say that the only reason I would watch it again is because my name is in the credits. The real life scenes that occurred during the filming of it were definitely more interesting than the movie itself. I did enjoy some of the soundtrack which was written and performed by professionals, a local Miami band called "Brand New". PS The leading lady may not win an Oscar, but she could definitely win an award for her voice!

Watching this tale of a detective from Harlem, who now works in Florida (hence the title) I was struck by how much better this film would be if there was some hardcore sex in it. The idea may make me seem like an absolute pig but if you watch this movie for more than five minutes you too will be struck by two thoughts:

First - when is the sex going to start because this movie looks and feels like a bad 1970's porn film. Second - when is the sex going to start since this movie is so awful that its probably the only thing the film makers could do to make this movie even remotely interesting.

This movie is a turkey. Its cheap, badly filmed, badly acted with awful action and a stupid plot (its got something to do with the kidnapping of an African Ambassador's wife or daughter or something). Its on that fine line between so bad its good and so bad its bad and it wobbles back and forth across it minute by minute.

If you're a true bad movie lover see it. If you're any other type of movie lover stay away because there is no sex to spice things up.

First off.despite some comments,this is not the worst movie ever made.There is no doubting the facts that it contains awful acting,amateur direction and production values,however its not the snooze fest some truly "bad" movies are.I quite enjoyed the ludicrous hero who seduces every woman he meets(within mins) and beats people up employing no fighting skills whatsoever.I like the fact the same interiors are used for different locations and the dialogue is corny as hell and delivered terribly.There's plenty of laughs to be had so its never truly boring.If you want bad movies try Curse of the Headless Horseman,Cannibal Terror,The Killing Edge or Black Devil Doll from Hell! The Guy From Harlem is far more entertaining than those stinkers. Now where can I find the sequel?

The blaxploitation fad was already in decline in the late 70's, and films like "The Guy From Harlem" were made. "Shaft" or "Black Belt Jones" this is not. It does have a funky score ("that cat is a baaaaad dude"), some beautiful black women and occasionally amusing dialogue. But the production is completely amateurish - there are quite a few cases of fumbled lines that remained in the final cut, probably because the producers couldn't afford second takes. It's billed as an action film, but it's mostly talk: virtually all of the action is fight scenes, and virtually all of the fight scenes are comically bad, playground-level. The fighting in this movie is even worse than the fighting in "T.N.T Jackson" - and that really should tell you something. (*1/2)

How bad can a movie get? Watch this and find out. The actors stutter their lines in almost every scene and the shots look like they were filmed by an old blind man. This 'film' also has the worst dialogue I've ever heard.

Invite your friends over and watch this for a laugh.

WARNING: The following review contains abuse of exclamation points.

Groooooch!

THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE.

Let me repeat this to make sure you get it.

THE. WORST. MOVIE. EVER. MADE.

Wait. I don't think I got it quite right yet.

THE!! WORST!! MOVIE!! EVER!! MADE!!

Worse than anything made by Ed Wood (including his "adult" movies)! Worse than anything by Bill Rebane, or Coleman Francis, or Richard Cunha, or Jerry Warren! Worse than MANOS! Worse than THE CREEPING TERROR! Worse than MONSTER-A-GO-GO (okay, maybe not)! Worse than BATTLEFIELD EARTH! Worse than FREDDY GOT FINGERED! Worse than PACIFIC HEIGHTS! Worse than Eddie Murphy's BOOMERANG! Worse than BABY GENIUSES 2! Wow! Stunning! Bad film-making at its worst! An all time low! Almost impossible for it to fail more than it did! Hilarious!

Teeth-grindingly awful! Everything about this movie is substandard! The lowest possible budget! Must have been written by a 12-year-old! Worse than amateurish acting! Everyone in this movie is a terrible actor! Leaden pacing! Abysmal shot composition! Poor staging! Terrible sound! (You can hear the camera rolling throughout the movie...)

The worst stunts I've ever seen! Most fake fight scene ever filmed! Awful dialog! The least amount of romantic chemistry ever seen between a male and female lead! Lousy music! (Actually the music is the least horrible thing about this movie, but it's still pretty bad.)

Ridiculously unlikely plot! Stilted exposition! A woman supposedly from Africa with an American accent! I still have not used enough exclamation points to convince you just HOW BAD this movie truly is!!!!

All budding MST3K trainees, attention: this is boot camp for the cynical movie critic. You will be LITERALLY BLOWN AWAY (hyperbole there: you will only be METAPHORICALLY blown away, not literally) by how truly awful, laughably bad and bargain basement this movie really is. Your jaw will hit the floor, your hair will curl, and your eyes will not believe what they are seeing.

If you read this comment and all the others regarding this movie, and still take a chance, don't come running back to any of us. You will either be rolling on the floor laughing the uncontrollable laughter of the truly insane or clawing your eyes out if you stick with this bloated cinematic pustule till the end.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Either this is one of the worst films ever made, even giving 70s blaxploitation an even badder name, or it is a wonderfully constructed parody of the whole genre. It could be the first satirical post-modernist film; pre-post-modernism in fact. On watching it you could think to yourself, are they being serious or is it a pastiche? Have they reduced the genre to its basic elements then re-constructed them into a profound meditation on the plight of the outsider engaged in a "left handed form of human endeavor." Are the pauses in dialogue due to the incompetence of the actors or is an attempt to cross-pollinate the gangster film with a Harold Pinter-ish sensibility? Is the crude photography a pioneering Dogme film long before its time? Is this indeed a lost masterpiece, worthy of Bergman, Dreyer or Welles? No. This is one of the worst films ever made.

I'm quite positive that a number of people who have seen The Guy from Harlem will look at my rating and conclude that I need to be committed. A 5/10 isn't a great rating, but it is for a movie as bad as The Guy from Harlem. There's a reason it has a 2.4 IMDb rating. I've always said that I rate films based on entertainment and The Guy from Harlem entertained me. Admittedly, I enjoyed a lot of the movie for the wrong reasons. Still, as I said, I was entertained.

The movie tells two stories of a private detective named Al Connors (Loye Hawkins). In the first, the CIA enlists Connors to guard a visiting African princess. In the second, Connors is hired to rescue a drug kingpin's kidnapped daughter. While the plot is nothing to write home about, given how bad the rest of the movies is, the plot is actually fairly coherent.

Beyond the plot, the rest of The Guy from Harlem is about as poorly presented as I've ever seen. It's easy to tell that for almost the entire cast, this is either their only or one of their only screen credits. The acting is abysmal, with unnatural delivery and flubbed lines. The fact that a lot of the actors' mistakes were not edited out goes to show the quality of the direction, editing, and the film's budget. Speaking of editing, The Guy from Harlem has one of the most glaring editing mistakes I've ever seen in a movie. There is a fairly routine scene with a few seconds of dialogue. Immediately after this scene is over, it is repeated a second time. How is it possible that no one noticed this? It would be like me typing a sentence and then typing it again. It would be like me typing a sentence and then typing it again. See what I mean? Next, the action set-pieces are a disaster. My five year-old could choreograph more realistic looking fight scenes. The sets look as cheap as the rest of the film. Connor's office consists of a couple of poorly furnished rooms in someone's house. It looks pathetic.

Despite these and other flaws in The Guy from Harlem, there has to be something that worked on me, right? First, these that issues many people would have with the movie, I found hysterical. The whole movie has that "so bad it's good" quality to it. Second, the music is actually quite good. I was pleasantly surprised with the funky 70s feel of the soundtrack. Third, there's a character named Harry De Bauld played by Steve Gallon that I found incredibly enjoyable. All of his lines were delivered at a volume several decibels greater than everyone else. He had a flow and style to his speech that worked on me. It reminded me a bit of WWE wrestling manager Teddy Long. What a hoot!

I got this movie in the Drive-in 50-pack collection. It's a filler film that is complete garbage. It's a blaxploitation film about a kidnapping but more like soft-core porn-garbage. I agree with another reviewer that the film should have been left for the porn-racket instead of trying to pass this off as an action crime-drama.

Z-rating all the way. Bad acting, pitiful story, and nudity. A crappy excuse to put boobs and soft-core porn in to a blaxploitation film.

This is worse than the bottom of the barrel, the film is buried deep under where the barrel is sitting.

THIS is the world's worst film, if it isn't then it's in the top 10 ten list. Why Mill Creek decided to put this rubbish in the Drive-in 50-pack is beyond me. This is not the kind of film that should be circulated but should be burned the garbage pile.

1/10

This movie left me in awe. No, not because it was good. This is the perfect example of a bad movie. I had never seen a movie as bad as this before. Ever. The cinematography was non-existent. The lighting was terrible. I have seen better acting from first grade children in a school play. There were somes scenes when it looked like the actors were reading from cue cards. The editing was awful. Some scenes seemed interlaced with others. This movie could only be watched for two reasons. Those reasons are to see what a truly bad movie is, and to appreciate the B movies. This movie could be called an F movie. My vote is ½ out of **** (or perhaps ¼ out of ****)

Not counting, Nazi propaganda films, pornography and student art films the "Guy From Harlem" is THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE, and I've seen garbage. Just to legitimize my claim let me make it clear I've seen plenty of bad films. I go out of my way to rent them. I'm a connoisseur of stupid cinema. I've seen "Secret Agent Double O Soul", "Drive in Massacre", "Spookies", "Beastmaster 3: The Eye of Barakus", "Highlander 2: The Quickening", "Psycho Cop", "Go-bots Meet the Rock Lords", "Blood Cult", "Mitchell", "Sleep Away Camp", "The Howling 2: Your Sister's a Werewolf" and "The Mines of Kilmanjaro" just to name a few. And all of them are Oscar winning material in comparison to this sorry joke of a movie. The back of the video pack claims the film is set in the crime infested underbelly of Harlem... the entire film takes place in Miami!! Not the fault of the film makers you say? Well try this on for size mister big shot! Halfway through the film they get tired of the story line and out of the blue decide to switch to the plot from "Shaft". It has the worst song ever, the worst acting, the worst fight scenes and the worst editing (they play a scene twice). At one point when asked to describe a gang leader named Big Daddy a character says the following. "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." Outside the WWF this describes no more than 3 to 5 living people and only one of them lives in Miami. And this film isn't a comedy. This write up doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what's wrong with this movie. It's so incredibly unpopular it will never make the 100 worst movies list, which is a real shame. The only movie that comes close to sucking as much is The Guy From Harlem's unofficial sequel "Super Soul Brother". At any rate I highly recommend this movie because it will make you appreciate every film you see after it a lot more.

Private Eye Al Connors is the smoothest private investigator since John Shaft. Born and bred in Harlem, but now living down in Fort Lauderdale, where he is an investigator for hire. In a similar plot line to "Shaft," Connors is hired by a local Drug Lord, to locate and bring home, his daughter, who has been kidnapped by a ruthless crime lord, "Big Daddy." This movie was obviously made with an extremely low budget, but also with the passion and dedication of a team of people who have a deep love and respect for film. Those faulting any movie for being "cheap," simply don't get it. We have all seen movies that cost many millions of dollars, that don't have one tenth the heart and soul, and style, of "The Guy From Harlem." It's all here; flashy clothes, sexy ladies, (and men,), beautiful classic cars, funky music. In short, this is a perfect example of the Independent/Blaxploitation genre. And this movie is SEXY. Loye Hawkins (Al Connors) is one good looking, light-skinned black dude with green eyes, who drives a red Cadillac , and wears his suits tight. And Cathy Davis (Wanda) has awesome 70's sex appeal. The story moves along at a brisk pace, and the dialog is sharp and often funny. There is a little nudity, but the film never becomes sleazy. Of course it's no masterpiece, but I have to wonder at all the nasty comments and low ratings. Who are those people, and why are they searching out this kind of movie, if they don't get it? Recommended for fans of TRUE independent, renegade cinema, crime thrillers, or those just looking for some beautiful 70's nostalgic cinema.

I was sampling some of the goodies offered in my Mills Creek boxed set of Drive-In classics and threw this one in the machine to watch. I had never heard of this flick before. In less than ten minutes into the running time, I could tell this one was going to be a scraping from the bottom of the bad movie barrel. An unknown Loge Hawkins plays the stereotypical blax hero and he's not bad looking but then he rarely moves from the 1977 shag rug opulence of a cheap apartment. Somehow, he's chosen to be the bodyguard to Princess, played by someone with so much make-up trowled on her face, especially the ten pounds layer of blue mascara, that she makes female impersonator, Divine, look like Elizabeth Taylor. She very quickly slips out of most of her clothes but then dons a bikini. She suddenly complains that she needs a good massage and so after a blonde woman massages the Princess, our bodyguard also massages her and then they go into a hot embrace and just when you think there might be some porno hanky-panky, the scene is over--or, deleted. Neither of this duo are much to look at. It badly needed a hunky Fred Williamson to show us some hot muscles and pizazz. This abomination of a movie looks like it was being filmed with no script, with the hero always on the phone, or looking out the window, or kissing the Princess. In one hilarious fight sequence, a short Asian man stops fighting, stoops down to do a somersault and then he staggers to his feet and goes into a martial arts pose. Just where this movie played upon release would be interesting since I don't think even drive-ins would have run it. Whatever this mess did, it torpedoed everybody in the cast because they were never heard of again. This would be a fun grade Z flick to show at a party along with "Single Room Furnished" and "Terror in the Jungle."

"The Guy From Harlem" is strictly filled with amateurs--and NOTHING about the film is polished or appears very good. It truly looks as if no one from the film had any experience in the industry and they were all just winging it! It is a terrible film--though I have seen worse.

The CIA wants the hero to protect the wife of an African head of state. So, inexplicably, instead of protecting her themselves, they seek out the private dick, Al Connors. Connors completes this assignment--along with beating up a few baddies and having his way with the sexy lady. Then, a mobster approaches Connors--his daughter has been kidnapped. So, Connors beats up some baddies and, not surprisingly, has his way with this lady as well. Both plots are amazingly similar and I have no idea why they didn't just have one plot instead of two which were nearly identical.

Al Connors (Loy Hawkins) is one of the lowest energy and least exciting blaxploitation heroes I've ever seen in a film. He lacks style but makes up for it in crappy fighting skills and no charisma. He isn't helped any by the fact that most of the supporting actors cannot deliver their lines--at least Hawkins does not stumble over his lines--he more just strolls through them in slow-motion. Overall, you've got cheap sets, poor acting, horrendous dialog, a repetitive plot and nothing positive to distinguish this film from the pack. Dull beyond belief.

I've never heard of "The Guy From Harlem" until I saw it listed here at the IMDb. I like blaxploitation so upon seeing the title and year it was made, checked out some reviews here. Needless to say, I had to watch this thing immediately after reading these reviews.

And they are all true. No one is exaggerating. "The Guy from Harlem" IS every bit as bad as people here at the IMDb say it is. I have no idea why this classic isn't spoken about when people talk about the worst films ever made, just a bad break I guess.

This is basically a feature-length home movie from 1977. The acting - if you want to call it that - is beyond horrendous. Lines are stuttered and the "actors" are unbelievably wooden and fake. NO ONE acts natural. But they give it their all which is part of the fun! The lead actor who plays the title role is a smooth-talking suave Shaft wanna-be private eye, who gets involved with solving a few related cases that also involve saving a few pretty girls in succession. Of course, even though he is warned not to hit on the girls, Mr. Smooth lays his smooth moves the second he is alone with each of them. No ebonics for him - he speaks extremely eloquently as he charms the girls he is saving out of their clothes. He is so smooth he even hides them out at the apartment of some other girl he knows.

The fight scenes must be seen to be believed. They are the most fake fight scenes you have ever seen. At one point after the very skinny lead guy beats up a bunch of toughs, he actually even refers to himself as the title role as he says "Tell him the guy from Harlem sent you!" The camera rarely moves and often it just films long shots as if you are watching a play. A very bad play. And yep, incredibly, unbelievably, there are two scenes that are actually done TWICE each, repeated one after the other. You actually see the actors stumble through the same set of lines twice. Did they just have money for two re-shoots? And one double-scene would be bad enough - but two?? It's incredible.

ENDING SPOILER! The big finale ends and everyone can go home. But wait, not so fast! The very big, mean and muscular bad guy challenges our skinny Mr. Smooth to a fight. And he accepts! And our skinny hero from Harlem WINS! And then it seems our Guy from Harlem, who sleeps with any female who crosses his path, is going to get married! To a girl he just met! And the whole flick is that logical. The bottom line is, if you like bad movies, this is a film that truly must be seen.

Quite possibly one of the most amusingly bad movies in blaxploitation cinema. Not only is it very low budget but its also quite lazily put together, there are too many mistakes to count and one can tell it was quite a rushed production, specially considering it was released near the end of blaxploitation's popularity, something that makes this film feel more sleazy and somewhat pitiful.

Even with its fun moments I cant say its entertaining, its actually very dull and tedious but its the kind of bad movie that manages to be hypnotic and interesting.

See it with the riff trax crew. It's amazing! It's the worst shot, worst acted film I've ever seen.

I can't imagine watching this without the hero's from mystery science theatre 3000. If u get the chance watch Rifftrax's version of the movie. It turns it from a 0 movie to one of the funniest you've ever seen. Without it, I can't help wonder how anyone provided $1 for this or the "actors" wanted to associate with this celluloid disaster. I mean didn't anyone read the "script" before showing up for filming? I could go on endlessly about this cinematic masterpiece but I will suggest heading to Rifftrak to keep you from jumping off a very tall building.