First feature film produced in Jamaica.
The movie is in Jamaican Patois, a creole language which can be understood to some extent by English speakers. There are subtitles in English for much of the movie on the original theatrical print.
Loosely based on Vincent "Ivanhoe" Martin (1924-1948), aka "Rhyging", a Jamaican outlaw turned folk hero. Updated for the 1970s, Martin was neither a musician nor a drug dealer.
Paul Simonon, the bass player for The Clash , was inspired by this film when he wrote the song The Guns of Brixton. Simpnon explicitly references the film in the lyrics "You see he feels like Ivan, born under the Brixton sun. His game is called surviving, at the end of The Harder They Come". The song appears as the 10th track on their groundbreaking 1980 double album "London Calling". Jimmy Cliff, the star of this film, himself covered the song as the 6th track of his 2012 album "Rebirth".