Starring Jimmy Cliff, Janet Bartley, Carl Bradshaw, and Ras Daniel Heartman
Directed by Perry Henzell
Music and Lyrics by Jimmy Cliff and others
We head across the Atlantic Ocean from England to Jamaica for our next musical drama. Jimmy Cliff was, along with Bob Marley, one of the major stars who helped spread reggae around the globe in the 60's and 70's. By 1970, he was successful enough to star in the first feature length film made in Jamaica.
This was a very big deal at the time. Though Jamaicans were proud to have achieved independence from England just twelve years before this movie came out, they were also aware of the enormous inequality in their little island nation, especially among the urban poor. This was one of the first movies to reflect this inequality in Jamaica, and the first to use the Jamaican Patois - their English dialect. How does the tale of a singer who comes to Kingston for a career but turns to a life of crime look today? Let's begin with Cliff's major hit "You Can Get It If You Really Want" as Ivanhoe "Ivan" Martin arrives in Kingston and find out...
The Story: Ivan doesn't have the easiest time in Kingston at first. He loses everything he owns to a street vendor the moment he arrives. His attempts to get a job end up with him working for the local preacher (Basil Keane), but those jobs are hardly exciting. He falls for the preacher's ward Elsa (Bartley), which the preacher doesn't approve of. He's even less happy when Elsa gives Ivan the keys to the chapel so he can rehearse an audition song with his band. Ivan tries to retrieve the bike he put together from Longa (Elijah Chambers), who works for the preacher. He attacks Longa with a knife when he won't give it up and ends up whipped by local police.
Things start to look up when he and Elsa move in together and he finally records his song "The Harder They Come." The studio owner Hilton (Bob Charlton) has a stranglehold on the local industry and holds Ivan to an exploitative contract. Desperate for money, Ivan ends up drug running for his friend Jose (Bradshaw) and buying guns for protection. His notoriety after he kills a cop and Jose's girlfriend brings him the fame he badly wants and finally gets his music played on the radio...but it also makes the police more determined to capture him.
The Song and Dance: The real interest in this dark crime drama is seeing a side of Jamaica you won't read about in any travel brochure. For all the glowing tropical colors, Henzell's Kingston is a dusty, dirty network of narrow streets, old clapboard structures, narrow alleys and ancient palm trees bending in the sea breezes. The glowing cinematography grounds the almost fable-like story in the reality of a Jamaica that was still finding its way after splitting from England. The soundtrack was so influential, it helped spread the popularity of reggae outside of the Caribbean and remains one of the biggest reggae albums ever.
The Numbers: We hear "You Can Get It If You Really Want" three times, notably over the credits as Ivan arrives in Kingston. "Rivers of Babylon" is a gospel number for the chorus at the church. Cliff and his band record the title song in the church before they're caught, and later in the studio. We also get "Many Rivers to Cross" and "Sitting In Limbo" from Cliff. The Maytals give us "Sweet and Dandy" and "Pressure Drop," and we hear "Johnny Too Bad" from the Slickers.
Trivia: Ivanhoe Martin apparently was a real-life Jamaican criminal and folk hero in the 30's and 40's, though apparently he was neither a musician nor a drug dealer.
This has twice been adapted into a stage musical, in England in 2005 and in New York in 2023.
What I Don't Like: Jamaicans may have been thrilled to see their culture and language reproduced accurately onscreen, but those thick accents make the movie very difficult to understand at times. You may need subtitles or to know something about Jamaican language and culture yourself in order to figure out what's going on. The acting is not wonderful - Cliff had only starred in a few school productions before this - and can sometimes come off as stiff when you get what they're saying. This is also a very violent and dark movie, especially towards the end. Let younger kids listen to the soundtrack first.
The Big Finale: If you ever wanted to learn about reggae and how it became an international phenomenon or see Jamaica in a very different light from the usual travelogues, this movie isn't a bad place to start.
Home Media: Easily found on all formats.
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